
Class 

Book 

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COMRiGHT DEPOSHV 



The Worker and His Work Series 



A Correspondence Study Course for 
Sunday School Workers 



THE SENIOR WORKER 
AND HIS WORK 



fly 

EDWARD S. LEWIS 



Authorized and Issued by the Board of Sunday 
Schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Fifty-Seven Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois, 
David G. Downey, Corresponding Secretary, 
in co-operation with John T. McFarland, Editor of 
Sunday School Publications, and with his approval. 

Printed for the Board 

by 

JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 



-S>V|5^ 



.u* 



Copyright, 1910, by 
The Board of Sunday Schools 

OF THE 

Methodist Episcopal Church 



4w D - 



©CI. A 3 0375 3 
NO. I 



• 4- 



CONTENTS 

Page 



INT 



] M.NTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. — THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL, - 9 

I. From Babe to Man, 23 

II. Middle Youth, - 39 

III. The Wistful Years, 53 

IV. The Teacher's First Pupil, ----- 63 
V. Consecration Plus Preparation, - - - 75 

VI. How to Plan the Work, - - - - gj 

VII. How to Analyze a Lesson, - 98 

VIII. The Teacher's Use of Questions, - - - 113 

IX. Illustrations — Their Value and Use, - - 127 

X. A Study of the Senior Problem, - . - 141 

XI. Morning-Glory Blossoms, 155 

XII. How to Teach Religion to Seniors, - - - 167 

XIII. How to Teach Morals and Manners, - - 179 

XIV. The Social Instincts and Their Training, - - 173 
XV. The Senior's World, 207 

XVI. Benevolence and Service, 219 

XVII. Class Organization, 233 

XVIII. Ways of Working, - 245 

XIX. Joining the Brotherhood, - 259 

XX. The Call of the World, 273 

Bibliography, - - - 284 

3 



PREFACE 

The present Sunday-school awakening is the brightest and 
most hopeful sign in the religious world. All the Churches 
are showing a new appreciation of the value of the child 
and an unwonted confidence in the Bible and its teachings. 
This has come none too soon. The Church can not hope 
to prosper as we long to have it unless it succeeds in holding 
more of her young people than she is holding or has ever 
held. This is distinctly the pressing problem of all the 
Churches. The religious interests of our own children are 
incomparably the Church's first responsibility and greatest 
work. We shall be discredited both at home and in the 
mission fields if we prove powerless to recruit our member- 
ship in larger numbers from our own homes. 

The Senior Department of the Sunday-school exists mainly 
on paper. Even our best organized schools seldom have a 
Senior Department separately organized and worked. And 
yet it is important — indispensable — to successful work. To 
what purpose do we win the younger scholars if we lose them 
in the senior years? 

This manual is an attempt to help the Senior teacher 
solve his perplexing and momentous problem. It has been 
freed as much as possible from technical forms, yet it has 
been held to accepted educational principles. The author 
hopes that it may be found interesting, as well as didactic, 

5 



6 PREFACE 

and that some may read it who may not work through it. 
He has endeavored to avoid undue attention to mechanical 
details of method and to trust mainly in larger inspirations. 

He has encountered the usual embarrassment in writing 
for both men and women without an outfit of appropriate 
personal pronouns. So he has used the masculine series uni- 
formly, and hereby asks that these be freely appropriated by 
the women who teach and those who learn. 

When the Sunday-school shall have solved its adolescent 
problem, the Church will enter its brightest era since Pente- 
cost. Edward S. Lewis. 

New York, March 15, 1910. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 

THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 

THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

By Wade Crawford Barclay, 

Educational Director of the Board of Sunday-schools 

I. Standard of Organization 

i. The purpose of organization. Organization is 
simply a means to an end. Given a certain situation, the 
Sunday-school should adopt such form of organization as 
Conditions w *** ^est ena °l e ^ to adapt itself to that situ- 
Determine ation and to accomplish the ends for which it 
Details of exists. If the school meets in a little country 
Organization sc hoolhouse, has one teacher, one class, and an 
enrollment of fifteen persons, it will not be aided in doing 
its work by adopting the complicated organization demanded 
by the city school of a thousand members. But even the 
smallest and weakest frontier school may, in a simple or- 
ganization suited to its situation and its needs, recognize the 
fundamental principles which make its big brother of the 
highest educational and religious efficiency. Conditions vary 
so widely in different schools that it is impossible to sug- 
gest a form of organization suited to all. Each school will 
do best by acquainting itself thoroughly with the highest 
ideals in Sunday-school work; then, having adopted a work- 
ing plan suited to its situation, it may gradually advance 
toward the ideal. 

2. The ideal standard. So far as possible, every Sunday- 

9 » 



io THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

school should attain to the following ideal of organi- 
zation : 

(i) The Sunday-school fully graded. (For complete 
statement on graded organization, see pp. I3-I4-) 

(2) A Cradle Roll. 

(3) A Home Department. 

(4) A Teacher Training Department. 

(5) Organized Adult Classes. 

(6) A Sunday-school Missionary Organization. 

(7) A Sunday-school Temperance Organization. 

(8) Regular Meeting of the Sunday-school Board. 

3, Officers necessary to realize this ideal. We suggest 
as advisable, in order to realize this ideal of organization 
and all that it implies, to have at least the following officers: 
Superintendent; an Assistant Superintendent, who shall be 
Director of Graded Instruction; a second Assistant Super- 
intendent, who shall be Director of Teacher Training; in 
large schools superintendents of various departments, as Su- 
perintendent of the Primary Department, Superintendent of 
the Junior Department, etc. ; Superintendent of the Home De- 
partment; Superintendent of the Cradle Roll; Secretary; an 
Assistant Secretary, who shall be Secretary of Enrollment 
and Classification; Treasurer; Organist; Chorister; one or 
more Librarians; Ushers, and various committees, of which 
one should be the Quarterly Conference Committee on Sunday- 
schools required by the Discipline, and another a Committee 
on Sunday-school Evangelism. 

4. The relation of the pastor to the Sunday-school. 
Since the Sunday-school is integrally a part of the Church, 
the pastor is as truly pastor of the Sunday-school as of the 
Church itself. Methodist Episcopal Church polity recognizes 
this and makes the pastor the executive head of the Sunday- 
school, and clearly defines his prerogatives as such. This re- 
lation should be cordially recognized by officers and school ? 
and every facility afforded the pastor to exercise a helpful 
and fruitful ministry in that department of the Church which 
offers him his largest spiritual opportunity. 



THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL n 

II. The Graded School 

I. What is a Graded School? There are few schools 
but what have from the beginning made some approach to 
grading. Seldom, indeed, is a school found which does not 
All Schools separate the gray heads from the curly locks. Not 
are to some only are classes formed, as a rule, with more or 
Extent less successful attempt to group together those 

Graded Q £ approximately the same age, but the lesson 

helps commonly furnished bear titles such as Intermediate 
Quarterly, Senior Quarterly, which thus recognize the dif- 
ferent departments from beginners to adults. Thus it would 
seem at first glance that the average school has been graded, 
both as to pupils and as to lesson materials. But as a 
matter of fact, this is only a seeming gradation. Age alone 
is not a proper basis for grading pupils. As for the cur- 
riculum, since all lesson helps of the uniform series use the 
same lesson material for all ages, and presuppose almost 
entirely the same teaching methods for all, they can be said 
to be graded only in name. 

In order that a school may be properly and successfully 
graded there must be, in both theory and practice, full recog- 
nition of the following principles : 

(a) The members of the school must be separated into 
general divisions suggested by the natural periods of human 
A life; and, secondly, into classes upon the basis of 

Completely age, physical development, and mental capacity. 
Graded (b) The curriculum must be so planned as 

School t0 su j t t j ie i essons t0 tne m ental powers, the 

interests, and the spiritual needs of the pupils. 

(c) The teaching methods used must likewise be deter- 
mined by and suited to the mental development and spiritual 
needs of the learners. 

(d) Promotions from class to class and from department 
to department must be upon the basis of a standard which 
has regard both to proficiency in the curriculum and to age 
and physical, mental, and spiritual development. 



12 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

2. The necessity of grading. If the Sunday-school is 
to realize its highest possibilities, grading is not a matter of 
opinion or choice, but a necessity. This by no means declares 
other methods a failure; "it recognizes the good already at- 
tained, while it seeks a higher good." Grading rests upon 
these established principles : 

(a) Human life is by nature marked off into certain clearly 
defined periods. A human being is a developing creature 
with needs different in different periods of his developing 
God life. Grading is the recognition of this fact. 
First Graded No Sunday-school consists of pupils all of one 
Human a ge; rather, it is made up of people of all ages 
Llfe and in all stages of physical, mental, and spir- 
itual growth. Grading is the means of adaptation to these 
existing facts. It is a commonplace of child study to-day 
that at one period play is a dominating interest; at another, 
memory power reaches its culmination; at another, biography 
makes its strongest appeal; at still another, "the chivalric 
ideals and great altruistic principles of Christianity appeal 
with almost irresistible force." The aptitudes, the needs, the 
interests of the different periods can only be met and taken 
advantage of by a graded system. 

(b) In all teaching the mind of the learner is now the 
point of departure. Teaching has to do with two principals, 
the learner and the truth to be taught. In the Sunday-school 
Teaching * n ^ e P ast a ^ most an< emphasis has been placed 
Has Regard upon the body of material to be taught. The 
First to the lesson system has been planned almost entirely 
Being who is with regar( i to t h e Bible. But the science of 

pedagogy has been coming more and more to 
hold that effective teaching must regard first the mind of 
the learner, and consider the teaching material as a means 
of reaching desired ends. As soon as this point of view is 
adopted, grading of the lesson material becomes necessary. 
Only this secures the presentation of the different parts of 
the Bible at the time at which they severally make their 
strongest and most effective appeal. The application of this 



THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL 13 

principle would make forever impossible the presentation to 
the minds of little children of lesson material which is fitted 
to test the intellectual acumen of college graduates. 

(c) The Bible itself is best studied in the order of its 
development. The uniform lesson system ignores both the 
fact that the Bible is a body of sacred literature which de- 
Different veloped slowly through long centuries, and that 

Parts of Bible it is a gradual and progressive revelation of the 
Represent purpose and will of God concerning men. 1 The 
Periods of graded system is fitted to give due emphasis to 
both these facts. A graded course of study pre- 
senting the Bible practically in the order in which it came 
into existence, which order is singularly fitted to the periods 
of mental growth, will give to the person who takes the 
course complete and connected knowledge of the Scriptures 
and their teaching quite impossible of impartation by means 
of the fragmentary, patchwork method of the uniform system. 
3. Objections to grading. It may be well to consider 
briefly the most common objections made to grading the 
Sunday-school. It is objected that: 

(a) Grading will do away with uniformity, that is, the 
use of the same lesson by the whole school and by all 
schools throughout the world. There can be no doubt that 
the uniform lesson system was at the time of its inaugu- 
ration a great improvement over the previous lack of sys- 
tem, and that it has been attended by many benefits and 
advantages. It marked a distinct stage of advance in Sunday- 
school development, but it has served its day and must now 
give way in order that the Sunday-school may become still 
more efficient. We can afford to discard a good for a still 
greater good. The uniform lesson idea appeals to sentiment, 
but it is easily discernible that the strongest influence in its 



1 " If the Bible is the history of a progressive revelation, and if, for this 
reason, it yields its best results alike intellectually and religiously when it is 
studied with due reference to the relation of part to part, and to the unfolding of 
the great divine truth and revelation that runs through it, then we shall give our 
suffrages to the graded curriculum in preference to the system of uniformity." 
— Burton and Mathews, Principles and Ideals for the Sunday-school, /. ijo. 

3 



14 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

favor at present is that growing out of the fact that it has 
been financially remunerative. Surely all will concede that 
neither mere sentiment nor financial gain should be allowed 
to stand in the way of the Sunday-school becoming a greater 
power for religion and morals. 

(b) Grading requires specialists. This objection, frequently 
made, is not valid. The untrained teacher has at least as 
much chance of doing good work in a graded as in an un- 
graded school. The lesson material making a stronger appeal 
to the interests of the pupils is easier to handle. Moreover, 
the assignment of the teacher to a certain grade makes it 
possible for him to become a specialist by attaining mastery 
in that particular field. 1 

(c) It is too difficult to effect a change. The difficulties 
are likely to be unduly magnified. A graded system may be 
introduced so gradually as to occasion little notice or diffi- 
culty. When the advantages of a graded school are fully 
realized, ways may be found to overcome what difficulties 
really exist. It is only necessary that the plan be clearly 
understood by those intimately concerned in necessary changes, 
and that they be brought to realize the force of the reasons 
demanding the changes. 2 

4. Plan of graded organization. 

(a) The natural divisions of human life. The great 
primary divisions of human life have always been recognized 
— childhood, the period of subjection, imitation, receptivity; 
youth, the period of awakening powers; manhood, the period 
of developed powers. Psychology, and especially child-study, 
has made equally clear secondary natural periods, which, ex- 
pressed in terms of age, are from one to three, three to seven, 



1 " See how the primary teachers grow ; they are head and shoulders 
above the rest in organization, in printed helps, in sheer pedagogic efficiency, — 
why ? Because they have accepted a narrow location, an age limit of pupils, 
and maintained it through the years. They have done the same kind of work 
over and over again ; of course, they have grown efficient." — E. M. Fergusson. 

2 " Failures have come only when the attempt has been made to force on 
the school some mechanical contrivance in a mechanical manner. Let the 
principle and plan be fully understood by all workers."— H. F. Cope. 



THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL 15 

seven to nine, nine to twelve or thirteen, thirteen to sixteen 
or seventeen. The age division differs with the sexes, the 
Grading; is m ale sex developing more slowly. Even within 
Working in sex limits the periods vary with individuals, de- 
Harmony pendent upon the rapidity or tardiness of the 
with God physical, mental, and spiritual development. This 

fact makes the age standard alone an unsatisfactory one. 
These natural divisions or periods of human life form the 
basis of the organization of the graded Sunday-school. 

(b) The Divisions of the Sunday-school. On the foregoing 
basis the graded Sunday-school has the following divisions : 

Age Public School Grade 

Cradle Roll , 

[...... 3 

Beginner's Department i 4 

j l 1 ■; 

Primary Department 1 7 2 

r l 8 

I 10 5 

Junior Department^ ^ 

[ 12 7 

[.... i3 8 

Intermediate Department ••; .... 14 9 

|.... 15 10 

r 16 it 

Senior Department i 17 12 

I l8 

Adult Department Over 18. 

a. Organized Adult Bible Classes. 

b. Teacher Training Department. 
Home Department. 

[Note: Some authorities would include pupils 16 years 
old in the Intermediate Department ; make the Senior Depart- 
ment to consist of those 17, 18, 19, and 20, and the Adult 
Department to include those over 20.] 3 



i6 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

III. Administration of the Graded School 

In administration, again, to a certain extent, each school 
must work out its own problems. Often the inadequate 
facilities for school work afforded by the church building 
p . . . forces a modification or entire change of plans 

Be Regarded which under more favorable conditions would 
in Admin- be of the highest standard. Only general prin- 
lstration ciples may be enunciated. These should be 

regarded in practice to the largest extent which local con- 
ditions allow. 

i. Each department of the school should have its own 
room. This arrangement promotes an ideal organization and 
administration of the graded curriculum and is greatly to 
Separate ^e desired wherever it is possible, although in 

Rooms for most schools, as at present situated, it is of 
Departments course impracticable. These departmental rooms 
and Classes s hould be so planned as to allow the placing of 
the various grades in separate rooms. For example, the 
Primary room should be so planned as to be easily sub- 
divided into three smaller rooms, one for each grade. The 
division of departments may well be into grades only up 
to the Intermediate Department, in which the three grades 
should be subdivided into classes. That is, in the Beginners', 
Primary, and Junior Departments, the grade may constitute 
the unit, but in the Intermediate Department the grade should 
be sub-divided into classes, thus placing a smaller number 
of pupils under the care of a teacher and allowing an oppor- 
tunity for that close personal association which is so es- 
sential during the crucial years of adolescence. The inter- 
mediate room should therefore be large enough to allow a 
separate class room to each class. 

It is quite impossible for the grade or class to do its 
best work without a room to itself. When this can not 
be, each class should be shut off by screens or other tempo- 

3 



THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL 17 

rary partitions. In some cases heavy curtains may be used 
to advantage. 

2. The school should meet together for brief open- 
ing exercises. An assembly room, which in actual practice 
will most often be the church auditorium, should be used 
An o enimr to assem ble the entire school at the opening or 
Service for closing of the school session. An exception may 
the Entire well be made of the Beginners' Department and 

also of the Primary Department. There is not 
unanimity of opinion on this subject, some advocating that 
each department hold its own opening and closing exercises. 
We hold to the former plan. This gives a sense of 
unity and binds the various departments and organized 
classes to the school and to the Church in a manner 
highly desirable. These exercises should be very brief, 
much more so than they usually are at present — as a 
rule not more than fifteen minutes should be used in 
this way, in order that the all too brief teaching period may 
be lengthened as much as possible. The first essential of 
these exercises is promptness in beginning; the superin- 
tendent and chorister should be in their places exactly on 
time to open the school; better five minutes early than one 
minute late. A primary purpose of these exercises is worship, 
hence reverence must be cultivated. The manner of con- 
ducting the exercises, the hymns used, the words of the leader, 
— all should combine to induce the spirit of reverence and 
worship. 

3. In general, teachers should remain in charge of 
the same grade. The question as to whether the teacher 
should remain in one grade or advance from grade to 
Teachers grade with the class has been sharply debated 
for in literature and convention. In general, there 
Certain can be little question as to the advisability of 
Grades ^e teacher remaining stationary. As stated 
above, it enables the teacher to become a specialist in some 
one particular field. Sunday-school teachers are busy people 

2 3 



18 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

and can neither be required nor expected to thoroughly ac- 
quaint themselves with the entire field of Sunday-school in- 
struction and life. They may, however, reasonably be ex- 
pected in time to become adept in the field of some one 
department or grade. The objection is made that under the 
old system the class became attached to the teacher and thus 
by the bond of personal affection were held to the Sunday- 
school. But did it always work out so happily? As a recent 
writer puts it: "Suppose the teacher goes into heaven, into 
matrimony, or elsewhere. Where will the class go? They 
will go — be very sure of that." Whatever weight this argu- 
ment has is counterbalanced by the fact that passing from 
one teacher to another aids in giving to the pupils a distinct 
sense of advance and by so doing promotes interest and effort. 

An exception to this general rule may be made in the 
Intermediate and Senior Departments. Here a teacher who 
has shown himself capable of interesting and influencing the 
boys or girls should be allowed to continue with the same 
class through the three grades of the department. Confidence 
of the pupils in their teacher, personal friendship, and in- 
timate acquaintanceship of the teacher with the pupils are 
at this period indispensable. These can only exist as teacher 
and class may be together for more than one year. But this 
continuance of the same teacher with the class should not 
extend beyond the limits of the department. 

How important, in view of the light shed in recent years 
upon the period of adolescence, that the teacher who is to be 
entrusted with the moral and religious guidance of young 
people of this age have an intimate acquaintanceship with 
the most important literature on the subject — such an ac- 
quaintanceship as can only be attained by giving exclusive 
attention to this one department ! The age is by common 
consent difficult to deal with. How important, again, that a 
man who has come through experience to understand and 
sympathize with adolescent boys, and has attained power to 
lead and mold them, be allowed the opportunity to exercise 
continuously this much needed ministry! 3 



THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL 19 

4. The best possible facilities and equipment should 
be provided. Altogether too little attention has been paid 
in the past to adequate facilities for the work of the Sunday- 
school. In plans of architects and committees, the require- 
ments of the Sunday-school have been ignored or given, at 
the best, slight consideration. Along with increased interest 
Ad t in the Sunday-school and improved methods must 

Building go better facilities and more complete equipment, 

and Equip- Sunday-school workers themselves have a right 
ment to be to j^ h earc [ U p 0n this subject, and should insist 
on the Sunday-school being provided for in ac- 
cord with its importance to the Church and the kingdom. 
Some large Sunday-schools now have a building all their own, 
especially designed for Sunday-school work and elaborately 
equipped. This is as it should be. No longer should any 
Sunday-school be compelled to carry on its work in one room 
of a large church, and that a dark, damp, illy furnished 
basement. 

Careful consideration should be paid to securing graded 
equipment, proper text-books in sufficient number, and teach- 
ers who have been prepared for their work. It would be 
unwise for any school to endeavor to introduce a graded 
curriculum without attention being paid to these essentials. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. Standard of Organization. 
II. The Graded School. 

1. What is a graded school? 

2. The necessity of grading. 

3. Objections to grading. 

4. Plan of graded organization. 

III. Administration of the Graded School. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. Sunday-school architecture. 

2. Some successful graded schools. 3 



20 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. To what extent can a standard of organization be 

fixed for all schools ? 

2. State the ideal standard. 

3. What officers are essential? 

4. What is the relation of the pastor to the Sunday- 

school ? 

5. What principles must be given recognition in the 

fully graded school? 

6. What reasons make grading necessary to the best 

work? 

7. State and answer the common objections to grading. 

8. Name the divisions or departments of a graded 

school. 



CHAPTER I 

FROM BABE TO MAN 



CHAPTER I 
FROM BABE TO MAN 

I. The Fact of Growth 

"Who made you?" is the first question of the old Cate- 
chism; and the old answer was, "God." But this does not 
express our thought of the individual of to-day. Of course, 
Growth the ^ e Gr ^S m °f n ^ e * s a ^ w ^h the Creator. So 
Most Signifi- are the substances of body and mind and all 
cant Fact the laws and processes of their ongoing. Their 
of Life growth itself is ordained of God. He might 

have made us mature men and women at once, but this was 
not His way. All men and women have come up through 
the gates of birth and have been carried along by growth 
through infancy and childhood and youth to maturity. A 
little girl was asked, "Who made you?" Her answer was, 
"God made me so long (extending her hands), and I grew 
the rest." She had a glimpse of the great truth. Over a 
bridge in Scotland is written, "God and we." A young girl 
was impressed with the great need of a bridge over a moun- 
tain torrent at this point, and pleaded and toiled for it so 
earnestly and piously that, when at last her prayers were 
answered, she asked to have that legend placed upon it. The 
same with propriety might be written upon every successful 
human life. God has bidden us to labor with Him in our 
own creation. He has made fathers and mothers and teach- 
ers and neighbors partners with Him in the making of men 
and women. It is not His will that we should become mature 
at once, nor that all the responsibility for our adult char- 
acters should rest upon Him. 

Growth underlies all theories and practices of education, 
all possibilities of character and usefulness, all appeals of 

23 3 



24 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

morals and religion, and all inspirations of duty and destiny. 
If it were not for the universal law of growth there would 
be no teacher-training, nor any teachers or pupils or schools. 
It challenges our ambition as it introduces us to our great 
work. 

Luther Burbank says : "Growth is a vital process — an 
evolution — a marshalling of vagrant, unorganized forces into 
definite forms of beauty, harmony, and utility. Growth in 
some form is about all that we ever take any interest in; 
it expresses about everything of value to us. Growth in 
its more simple or most marvelously complicated forms is 
the architect of beauty, the inspiration of poetry, the builder 
and sustainer of life, for life itself is only growth, an ever- 
changing movement toward some object or ideal. Wherever 
life is found, there also is growth in some direction. The 
end of growth is the beginning of decay." 

II. The Wonders of Growth 

The world is full of wonders, but growth monopolizes the 
most and the strangest of them. As far above the clod and 
the stone and the river as are the flower, the bird, and the 
Growth Re- man are ^ e fascinations of growth over the 
veals God's statics of the dead earth. The teacher's grand 
Process of inspiration is this principle that rides upon the 
Creation ^ Q ^ £ ^ Q world. The marvelous transformations 

of nature are divine. They are made by the power of God 
according to the plans of God. As we gaze upon any child 
that we meet on the street we may behold the divine creation 
in process ; we may see man being made in the image of 
God. And every living thing in nature adds to this wonder. 
The brown sward changing into the turf of the velvet lawn; 
the tiny green shoot coming by and by to the tall stalk and 
the full corn in the ear; the tgg y the nestling, and the lark 
soaring into the sky with its matchless song; the trees of 
myriad forests ; the cattle upon a thousand hills ; and, above 
all, the supreme wonder of the human babe passing invisibly 

3 



FROM BABE TO MAN 2g 

and resistlessly into the boy and the man, are all living tokens 
to us of the present God working busily in His world. And 
by all these He calls us to His aid. The teacher is admitted 
into the most sacred recesses of the divine laboratory. 

III. The Periods of Growth 

It has long been noted that human life seems to run 
somewhat in sevens. Growth is far from uniform — and this 
is another wonder. We might have expected it to move us 
Growth along like the clock-hand over the dial or the 

Proceeds stars about the earth. But there are "three 

through speeds" to the car of life, and more. There are 

Fixed Stages hurry times and there are slack times. There 
are crises, delicate and deep and fraught with momentous 
consequences. These come at the sevens of the years. When 
the child is seven years old he begins to lose his first teeth 
and to get his second set. There are other marked physio- 
logical changes. Among them is the frequent disappearance 
of infantile diseases. Perhaps a child has suffered from some 
ailment that no treatment or nursing had any effect upon. 
It is a baby-disease, and at about six or seven years of age 
the child outgrows it and it permanently disappears. The 
doctor may say of sundry humors and symptoms and pains, 
"Wait until his milk teeth go and these troubles will go 
with them." At fourteen years of age come on the capital 
changes of adolescence, with which we shall be mainly occu- 
pied throughout these lessons. At twenty-one, the third seven, 
the physical growth is about accomplished. At forty-nine, the 
seventh seven, comes the prime ; and ten sevens compose the 
threescore years and ten, the conventional measure of a life- 
time. 

This division, however, is not followed in the educational 
scheme. The period of growth is more closely analyzed and 
divided here. The first three years may be called infancy. 
They are sometimes referred to as the nursery age. From 
three to five years is early childhood. These are also called 



26 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

the kindergarten years. In our present Sunday-school grad- 
ing, children of this age are called beginners. From six to 
eight years we may call the period of middle childhood. 
They are the primary years of our grading. Later child- 
hood, the junior grade, covers the years from nine to twelve. 
The intermediates are those from thirteen to fifteen, the period 
of early adolescence. Middle adolescence may be reckoned 
from sixteen to eighteen, or as we prefer to twenty, which 
thus practically corresponds with the senior grade. Later ado- 
lescence extends from this to maturity, say twenty-four or 
twenty-five years. All the years from twenty-one on are 
classed as adult in the grading. 

IV. Changes After Maturity 

Nor does the body settle down into a groove even after 
growth has been accomplished. There are incessant changes 
of all kinds. Organs and members grow, and pause, and 
Each Part grow again, and decline. They do not keep on 
Runs together, but each seems to run a course peculiar 

its Own to itself. Dr. G. Stanley Hall tells us that the 

Course arteries continue to grow in size till at least the 

age of sixty. "At birth the relation of the heart to the 
arteries is as twenty-five to twenty. At the dawn of puberty 
it is as one hundred and forty to fifty, and in full maturity it 
is as two hundred and ninety to sixty-one/' Another authority 
concludes "that the kidneys are at their largest in the third 
decade; the muscles, skeleton, intestines, and liver, in the 
fifth ; the heart and lungs in the eighth. From which it seems 
that almost each organ has its youth, maturity, and old age, 
and that these do not coincide with each other or with the 
stages of the body growth as a whole. The motor organs, 
as the heaviest, give to growth its chief character. So that 
what we call maturity is the period of their greatest develop- 
ment." The most striking illustration of this independent 
development of the organs is in the most important of them — ■ 
the brain. Dr. Hall tells us that this master organ is nearly 

3 



FROM BABE TO MAN 27 

done growing (in weight and size) at six years of age. 
During the fourth year alone it increases more than it will 
during all the rest of life. It reaches its maximum at from 
twelve to fourteen years. This early maturing of the brain 
is one of the most significant facts in physiology, and therefore 
in education. 

V. The Seven Ages of the Child 

Thus we may paraphrase Shakespeare's famous theme. 

For, taking "child" in its large sense, from birth to full 

maturity, we count seven periods. These are by no means 

artificial. The very foundations of grading rest, 
The Periods ,11 <• T r , ,i 

Described or snou ^ rest > upon reality. If at any time they 
are found off reality they should be replaced by 
a change of the grading. But we believe that there are 
real and natural variations upon which these grades are 
based. A difference calls for a grade, and if there is no 
difference there should be no grade. To prolong a grade 
after the things that called for that grade have passed away 
is to invite failure in the teaching process ; and to make a 
new grade when the present things are unchanged is also 
to bid for failure. Grading thus becomes as universal as 
childhood and its moods; for they present substantially the 
same phases always and everywhere. 

1. Infancy. This is the beginning. The child lies, a 
little, breathing, pulsating body, in its mother's arms. It has 
little mentality at first, and probably no consciousness of self. 
It has everything to learn, and it has the nascent faculties 
wherewith to learn the wonders of the new world into which 
it has been born. We see little that is positive or individual 
yet. Its traits are passive ones. It is dependent, open, re- 
ceptive. A half-dozen of its most prominent dispositions may 
be restlessness, curiosity, imitation, fun, yearning, and appe- 
tite. These and all the rest are important in their possi- 
bilities. They are not transient and unrelated traits to be 
obliterated by and by. They are germinal traits that develop 



28 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

into all that follow. He who knows how to read an infant 
sees far more than restlessness in the little animated mass 
that "has ten thousand springs in him to make him wiggle 
and not one to make him hold still." He sees a nascent 
principle that under the mysterious push of life will develop 
into the intelligent activities of childhood, the well-directed 
energy and power of adolescence, and the honorable achieve- 
ments of manhood. These characteristics are noticeable in 
all babies. They are few, but they may serve to give us a 
mental picture of the first stage of the child. 

2. Early childhood. From four to five years a great 
change has taken place. The child has learned a whole 
language and feels quite at home in the world. He has 
begun to reveal his nature and to gain his individuality. 
He is now talking a good deal, and watching everybody and 
everything with wide-open eyes. He is working his imi- 
tative faculties hard, for this is the way he learns to do 
things. His imagination is vivid and his simple remarks 
often call for profound interpretation. He has a compre- 
hensive creed, for it includes almost every person and thing. 
He is very social and can not bear to be alone. His home 
is getting small, and he begins to look forward to the larger 
social life of the school. 

3. Middle childhood. It is an epoch in the life of 
the child when he first leaves his home for the school. And 
there are often tears in the mother's eyes, and new petitions 
enter into her prayers as she sees her "baby" go out into 
the world. But the child is a babe no longer. All the 
traits of infancy have been transformed. They have no 
more perished than the seed which reappears in the tiny 
plant. The infantile restlessness has become activity, more 
or less purposeful and effective. The curiosity of the infant 
has become inquiry. The number of questions that the six- 
year-old can ask is amazing and often distracting. The 
baby's imitation has taken on observation and is guided and 
amplified by this, the results of which are startling at times. 



FROM BABE TO MAN 29 

This propensity of imitation has led many such a child to 
poison himself with tobacco, to the horror of his parents. 
This shows the power of the pull of influence. The native 
humor that dimples the cheeks and laughs in the eyes of the 
babe has developed into well-defined play. The yearning 
of the infant for caresses and for company has become 
manifest in the marked social tendencies of the boy; and 
the appetite, both bodily and mental, now shows itself in 
a disposition to accept in unquestioning acquiescence every- 
thing that he is told. This trustful spirit of the young 
child is one of the most beautiful things in the world. There 
are few fascinations in nature like it. There is no compli- 
ment that a man or woman can receive like the upturned 
face of the child speaking wonder and confidence. This 
is a marvelous age for sowing the good seed — and particu- 
larly for impressing religious truth. He who is not touched 
by the fascinations of these children is callous indeed. Says 
Professor Pattee: "The child is indeed a bit of the king- 
dom of heaven. He is artless and unaffected; he is will- 
ingly dependent; he thinketh no evil; he has faith in all 
things ; he loves as the sun shines and tells his love with 
perfect unconsciousness ; he is spontaneous and enthusias- 
tically optimistic. It is the child alone that keeps the world 
sweet and hopeful. Without childhood the race would drift 
into pessimism and hatred and despair." 

4. Later childhood. From nine to twelve are the clos- 
ing years of childhood. This period is also strongly marked, 
and it foreshadows the coming of youth. The boy is rough 
and thoughtless. He becomes absorbed in his play. He 
looks askance at refinement and has to be persuaded variously 
to wash his face and comb his hair. He has no prejudice 
against mud, as a general thing, nor against water, pro- 
vided it is not in the bath. He is loud and boisterous, and 
likes to scuffle and push, and counts a day without a fight 
as a lost opportunity. The girl is a good deal like him, 
although less aggressive. She is about through with her 

s 



30 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

dolls, and, like her brother, shows preference for group 
games. There seems to be a repulsion of sex in this period. 
She "just hates boys," and the boys taunt and tease her. 
Both boys and girls are reading much now. It is said that 
the reading age begins at about the eighth year. It is long 
enough since they have learned to read for them to read 
fluently, and their thoughts are beginning to take hold upon 
real life, which makes stories of great men and great events 
fascinating to them. Their minds run to heroes who draw 
heavily upon their admiration and furnish them with ma- 
terials for their new ideals. 

5. Early adolescence. From thirteen to fifteen is the 
age of the greatest crisis of growth. There is usually a 
rapid bodily growth, with the accompanying sex-differentia- 
tions. The mind also undergoes radical transformations. 
New emotions are born as childhood disappears in the by- 
gone years, and strange hopes and fears engage the soul. 
It is a period of great energy and independence. The de- 
pendent child is becoming self-centered and self-reliant. He 
is beginning to study his own problems and come to his 
own conclusions concerning them. And he comes to very 
positive conclusions. He is impatient of disagreements and 
wants to fight about them. In boys the fighting spirit comes 
to its climax here. But strong friendships are as marked 
as strong antagonisms. We hear much of the "gang" and 
the "bunch" at this time. There are clinging intimacies 
and deathless loyalties and profound confidences between 
the chums of early youth. These things are probably en- 
hanced by the incipient alienation of the youth from his 
parents, who too often fail to understand him in his new 
character. The young folks enter very deeply into each 
others' hearts — to find the sympathy that they so keenly 
desire and fail to find elsewhere. 

We must not omit mention of the most important feature 
of early adolescence — its religious character. With all the 
seemingly untoward phases of the youth, there is neverthe- 

3 



FROM BABE TO MAN 31 

less a strong current which draws him toward truth and 
worship and God. It is never to be forgotten that most 
conversions of individuals occur within this period. With 
all the self-assertion and large denials of youth there is 
also a profound response in his soul to the appeals of faith 
and truth and the winsomeness of Jesus Christ. Though 
it be a period of doubt, it is more a period of faith. 

6. Middle adolescence. The years from seventeen to 
twenty are the fateful years. In these the decisions for life 
and for destiny are made and sealed. The sexes turn toward 
each other in sweet and pure affection, and as maturity 
approaches the young people tend toward their permanent 
places in the home, in the Church, in business, and in society. 
It is this period that we shall occupy ourselves with in the 
following lessons. 

7. Later adolescence. The youth comes of age at twenty- 
one, but he is not yet mature. He requires three or four 
years more in which to settle into his permanent positions. 
During these years his doubts find their solution in a sane 
and permanent faith, and his earlier faith ripens into potent 
convictions. .At least, this is the ideal and the natural 
process. Longings and hopes and opinions and tendencies 
become fixed principles that rule the life and form the char- 
acter. The period of growth comes to its close. The child 
puts away childish things, for he has become a man. 

VI. The Inner Transformations 

We have, then, something different from a simple case 
to deal with in education. It is more than complicated. 
For the child seems to be not one, but many, through his 
The changing years. "We have a different animal 

Complex to learn in every period," says one; and that 

Task of means a whole string of animals in all. Pattee 

Education puts it thus . « Sq great are the c h ange s 

through these periods that the child seems to pass through 
transformations almost as marked as those in the life of 



32 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

the butterfly. His entire nature seems to be re-created two 
or three times. More than once his whole horizon changes. 
The infant is in the age of myth and story; the boy and girl 
are in the age of biography and history; the youth has 
reached the stage of literature and morals ; the young man 
and woman are on the plane of religion and ethics. These 
are the four stages in the history, not only of the individual, 
but also of mankind." Here is the basis of the demand 
for grading: we grade our work because God has graded 
the child. We change when He changes. When He calls 
we follow. Every transformation of our subject lays a new 
necessity upon us. We have a new kind of teaching to do 
and to learn to do. Skill and success in one grade will not 
answer for a different grade. Even he who is called "a 
born teacher" because of his success with one grade may 
fail utterly with another. So clear are these differentiations 
and so sharp are the lines between them that the teacher's 
endowments are involved in them. 

VII. The Continuing Personality 

And yet there is no change of the person. He is the 
same through all these transformations. And the native 
traits and endowments persist, though they are transformed. 
The Person- Here is an important note for all who would 
ality Persists teach. Only he who understands the mind can 
Throughout minister to it; and only he understands a mental 
Llfe# trait who knows at least something of its his- 

tory. For instance, we can not understand the activity of 
the child by any amount of observation of it alone. It 
is only by correlating this with the restlessness of the in- 
fant, from which it grew, and the triumphant achievements 
of mature life, toward which it is tending, that we are able 
to deal intelligently with it. 

We venture upon the use of a diagram to illustrate 
this, understanding that nothing so hard and crude as lines 
and words can more than partially symbolize the mobility and 




FDIAGRAA\=n 
IUUSTO01NG 

DEVELQPAKNT 



GERMINAL TRAI15 






V&fr 



RTrt 



34 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

the freedom of the ebullient soul. This figure is an attempt 
to trace a half-dozen of the common traits of infancy through 
their normal run to maturity, noting their phases in these 
and three intermediate stages. 

The restlessness of the babe becomes the activity of the 
child. In early adolescence it appears as more intelligent 
energy; in later adolescence, as real power to grapple with 
difficulties and do things, and in maturity it is represented 
by achievement, which is the product of all that for which 
the perpetual motion of the baby stands. It is easy to see 
what should be done with a parent who sees nothing in a 
child's trying gymnastics but a nuisance to be suppressed — 
perhaps with deadly drugs! 

In like manner, the curiosity of the infant passes on 
into the spirit of inquiry which is so interesting and so 
promising in the child. This gives place to the well-known 
zest for examining into things that marks the early adolescent 
and the studious and critical investigation of later youth. 
Some great original scientists begin their work in this age. 
The end of the babe's curiosity in maturity is intelligence, 
experience, and perhaps invention and discovery. 

The imitativeness that amuses us and teaches us so much 
in the little child induces bright and close observation later, 
whick reacts and produces an intelligent choosing and fol- 
lowing of the best examples. The ideals of early youth be- 
come the habits that ripen into permanent character. 

It has been noted that the normal infant has a sense 
of humor. The fun in the baby eyes is not an accident. 
It, too, is a germ which develops into manly things. Its 
next phase is the play of the child, which passes over into 
the more elaborate games of the youth. By athletics, in the 
diagram, we mean the higher forms of sport which intro- 
duce the social element of team-play, with sacrifice features 
and other elements that mature in the struggles and compe- 
titions of business and professional life. 

The yearning of the babe for its mother's arms, the 

3 



FROM BABE TO MAN 35 

cuddling and caressing and the outcry when left alone, 
point to the associations and companionships of later years. 
They are as natural as breathing, and prepare the way for 
the foundation of those permanent friendships in later 
adolescence that not only form the basis for the family by 
and by, but also for business partnerships and the broader 
fraternities of society in community life and in philanthropic 
enterprises. 

One of the most marked features of the little life is 
its appetite, and this is of the mind as conspicuously as of 
the body. It soon becomes the sweet openness of the credu- 
lous child, so eager and so confiding that he gives his true 
teacher the sharpest mental stimulus. But the intelligent 
element steals into the growing years, and soon we have 
faith. Herein is a wonder: the new-born faith of early 
adolescence sweeps the large majority of all believers into 
the Church in a strangely brief period. And still a greater 
wonder — the skepticism of later adolescence, which is as 
unexpected as it is alarming. It is not abnormal, however, 
being but a function of the new sense of freedom and of 
intellectual ambition. Perhaps it is but skepticism in seeming, 
and in reality an odd variation of faith. An indication of 
this is the well-known tendency of adolescent doubt to 
vanish into sound religious convictions that rule the whole 
subsequent life. 

VIII. The Meaning of Growth 

The great lesson should appear here: growth is not for 
itself, but for education. God has ordained a plastic period 
in Growth ^ at the sou ^ ma y ^e mo *ded mto the right shape 
is the Pos- before it permanently hardens. Growth means 
sibiiity and teaching and training : it means all the wise and 
Significance tender nurture that love can inpsire and sym- 
f Education , «. ~ -r* 1 * V 1 

pathy direct. Says Burbank, the great plant- 
wizard: "All animal life is sensitive to environment, but 
of all living things the child is the most sensitive. Sur- 

s 



36 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

roundings act upon it as the outside world acts upon the 
plate of a camera. ... A child absorbs environment. It 
is the most susceptible thing in the world to influence, and 
if that force is applied rightly and constantly when the child 
is in its most receptive condition, the effect will be pro- 
nounced, immediate, and permanent." 

God's creation of men and women, then, is a process ; 
long, but limited; and broad, yet drawing toward a crisis. 
It is the solemn verdict of all experience that few lives are 
permanently changed after maturity. What we do we must 
do quickly. 

Less oil Outline: 

1. The Fact of Growth. 

II. The Wonders of Growth. 

III. The Periods of Growth. 

IV. Changes After Maturity. 

V. The Seven Ages of Childhood. 
VI. The Inner Transformations. 
VII. The Continuing Personality. 
VIII. The Meaning of Growth. 

Topics for Special Study: 

i. The significance of adolescence. 

2. The recapitulation theory, the reappearance of pe- 

riods of racial development in the individual. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

i. Possible methods of creation. 

2. State the periods of human growth. 

3. Likenesses and differences of individuals. 

4. The meaning of infancy. 

5. What becomes of the traits of infancy? 

6. The significance of childhood. 

7. What is adolescence? 

8. What is meant by the "persistence of personality ?" 

9. The chief significance of growth. 






CHAPTER II 

MIDDLE YOUTH 



CHAPTER II 
MIDDLE YOUTH 

I. The Period We Study 

We call it middle youth. It is the sixth of the "seven 
ages" of the child, extending from the age of seventeen to 
twenty. 1 It has various names, such as "middle adolescence," 
Various "social adolescence," "later adolescence," and 

Names "adolescence." The last name is used by those 

Used who call the years from thirteen to sixteen "pre- 

adolescence." The preceding name is applied by those who 
divide adolescence into two parts only, and include these 
years with the following few. But the precise name is not 
important. We are more interested to know that there is 
substantial agreement as to the qualities of this vital and 
critical age. It is the most characteristic of the three periods 
of youth, and perhaps the most difficult to handle of all 
the periods. If it is the most important period of adolescence, 
it becomes the most important period of the entire life. 

II. Physical Phenomena 

The body now shows marked changes and peculiarities. 
The boy is no longer a boy in size or voice or manner. 
Marked ^ e * s £ rowm g faster than ever before. Prob- 

Physical ably he is big and strong, with a new voice that 

Charac- sounds deeper and harsher than his father's. He 

tenstics k as to s h ave hjg beards and he dresses like the 

(other) men. He may be awkward in the house, but he is 
lithe and swift in the gymnasium or on the field. He has 



1 The Senior Department age according to the Board of Sunday-Schools' 
standard is sixteen to eighteen inclusive. For the purposes of this book, how- 
ever, we prefer to treat of the larger period, from seventeen to twenty inclusive. 

39 3 



40 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

splendid powers of effort and of endurance. He is found 
in large numbers in all armies of the world. Every college 
is made up largely of these youths, and athletics flourish 
among them, sometimes even to the neglect of their studies. 
His features often change so that absence of a few years 
makes recognition difficult. This is due to the rapid growth of 
the bones that give shape and expression to the face. 

The girl has become a woman. She has lost the round- 
ness of childhood and passed beyond the angularity of the 
following years. She now attains to womanly form and 
feature, and she "does up" her hair. Her gowns lengthen 
and carry more tokens of the dressmaker's art. She is 
called a young lady, and she "comes out." She is about 
grown up, though she is not wholly sure that she approves 
of it. 

III. An Age of Activity 

This is an age of extraordinary activity, both of body 
and mind. All kinds of things involving energy appeal to 
it. Young men plunge into baseball and football as if their 
Ph sical ^ ves depended upon it. They take long tramps, 

Energy they hunt and fish and golf and row and sail 

is Un- and swim and march and drive horses and motor 

bounded cars They delight in races and all kinds of 

contests. Their outlay of strength is astonishing and often 
alarming. Young women were formerly supposed to be 
rather quiet creatures, remaining indoors most of the time, 
and protecting their complexions carefully when they ven- 
tured out. But nowadays they are becoming another sort. 
They vie with their brothers in open-air exercises. We see 
them in summer bare-headed and bare-armed, sun-browned 
and strong, attending their companions of the other sex in 
most of their recreations. They are gay and tireless. They 
will picnic all day and dance all night. It is hard to keep 
them within bounds. They do not seem to know what weak- 
ness or weariness is. 

8 



MIDDLE YOUTH 41 

The youth inclines to surrender himself exclusively to 
the thing that claims his interest. For the time it possesses 
him. Pattee says : "He talks much now of specialties. Paul's 
text, This one thing I do/ appeals to him. He throws him- 
self with tremendous energy into whatever he does. The 
college athlete works at his training for months and even 
years with an intensity that one may look for in vain else- 
where. Men like Galileo, Weber, Beethoven, Wilberforce, 
and Michael Angelo did much of their best work before 
they were twenty." George Bentham was a skilled botanist 
at sixteen. Sir William Blackstone wrote the "Lawyer's Fare- 
well to His Muse" at eighteen. Lord Byron was famous at 
nineteen by his writings. Many of the splendid things that 
have blessed the world have been done by young people. 
When turned into the right channels, this activity becomes 
a mighty power for good. Far more of the world's work 
than we are likely to realize without thinking upon it is 
accomplished by young men twenty years old and under. 
They are found bearing what seem to be premature responsi- 
bilities in stores and banks and railroads and newspaper 
offices ; but they are there, and great interests are entrusted 
to their hands. Their strong vitality and abounding energy 
is in demand almost everywhere. 

IV, An Adventurous Age 

The child is bound to his home and bounded by his 

home. Here he lives and moves and has his being. But 

the youth seeks a wider range. He has little sense of time 

or distance. Some day a son walks into the 

A Period of t , . . . f ,^_ r „ 

Restlessness nome an( i says, in a matter-of-fact way, Well, 
I have thrown up my job." The surprised father 
asks why, and the answer is, "I am going to California — 
start to-morrow." And he goes. Perhaps he is not seen at 
home again. The young man starts for the Coast or for 
Chile or Australia or South Africa with startling eagerness, 
and often with little that we consider substantial to start 

3 



42 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

upon. Multitudes of young men poured into the frightful 
solitudes of Alaska when gold was found there, and many 
more would have gone thither if they could. In the public 
places of great cities naval officers stand ready to enlist re- 
cruits for the navy. One of their chief inducements is "a 
great chance to see the world," and this entices many youths. 
Home has suddenly become homely and humdrum, and al- 
most anything novel and romantic is able to draw the thought- 
less boy away. He sees no peril, and shrinks from no hard- 
ships. We can scarcely imagine anything more to be dreaded 
and avoided than war. Yet our armies that run to the bugle's 
alarm are mostly young men. It is hard to realize it, but al- 
most half of the men that enlisted in the Union army during 
the late war were eighteen years of age or under. So say the 
statistics just published. The total number of enlistments was 
2,778,300. Less than one-third of this whole number were 
twenty-one years old. A little less than one-third were six- 
teen or under. There were 1,500 aged fourteen and under, 
with 225 no older than twelve, and 25 not beyond ten years ! 
The same spirit moves the young woman. She is apt to be 
restless and discontented. She says, "O, if I could only get 
away somewhere and see something! I am tired of being 
stuck down in this stupid place, where everybody is so slow, 
and everything is dead." She is continually scheming to go 
somewhere, and the farther the better. Perhaps she throws 
the household into consternation some day by announcing 
that she has engaged herself to be married to a fancy young 
man, who has only been about town a few weeks, and that 
she is going to a new home a thousand miles away. The very 
spirit of the vikings seems to live again in our adventurous 
young people. 

V. The Age of Individuation 

It seems almost necessary to use a long word here, but it 
is not a hard one. We mean by it the rapid development of 
those traits and choices that make one an individual. Our 

3 



MIDDLE YOUTH 43 

adolescent may have had a mind of his own from the cradle- 
time, but he has not been as distinctly marked out from his 
companions before as he is now. He is striking out into what 
we call a character, and this will be his for the rest of his 
life. For this freedom is necessary, and this he is finding and 
using. The bonds that have kept him close to his parent and 
Individuality teachers are slackening. He is thrown more and 1 
Becomes more upon his own resources — and he is not dis- 

Fixed posed to resist this tendency. The old ties seem 

to loosen before the new ones form, and herein is the capital 
peril of adolescence. For a time the young man is adrift. 
He is attached nowhere. He thinks for himself, independently 
of everybody and everything. He consults his own desires. 
He tears up many things by the roots. He is anything but 
docile. It is even dangerous to try to give him advice. To 
be his own master is a new thing, and it exhilarates, if not 
intoxicates him. He gets this freedom before he is old enough 
to get experience. He must handle the rudder on his first 
voyage. 

VI. The Criminal Age 

As this is being written the papers are telling of two strik- 
ingly similar crimes perpetrated in different parts of this 
country. In one case, both the president and the cashier of 
a bank were shot down in cold blood, and in the other case 
one man was killed, and another seriously wounded. In both 
cases the object of the crimes was the robbery of a bank, and 
the criminals were mere boys, about seventeen years of age. 
Criminal In- ^ was snown that they had been gorging their 
stincts Often minds with stories of fictitious crimes found in 
Become vile novels. These had so inflamed their imag- 

Dominant ; nat i ons that they rushed off to rob and kill 
somebody. Now, these boys are not exceptional cases : they 
are even typical. When we think of robbers and burglars 
we naturally picture a burly villain of mature years ; and 
there are some such. But the fact is that most criminals are 

3 



44 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

young men, or began as young men. Over half the inmates 
of reformatories, jails, and prisons in this country are under 
twenty-five years of age; or, according to some authorities, 
under twenty-three! Judge Lindsey makes this statement as 
an argument for the reformation of our methods of criminal 
procedure and punishment, which is sorely needed for this 
very reason. Adolescents should not be treated as hardened 
criminals in any case by a civilized government. We have 
used the phrase at the head of this paragraph deliberately. 
An English prison commission not long ago reported to 
Parliament that the age of sixteen to twenty is the essentially 
criminal age. The very period of our study is the time when 
the criminal instincts develop, and criminal habits are formed. 
He who passes his twentieth year innosent is tolerably safe. 
The Earl of Shaftesbury, after long study, declared that not 
two out of any hundred criminals in London had formed the 
habits that led to criminality after the twentieth year. We 
are all familiar with the vicious gangs of boys in our large 
cities that are a terror to the police. They are so bold and 
so sly that it is almost impossible to catch them or to put a 
stop to their outrages. The "gas house gang," on the East 
Side of New York, has lately been poisoning horses to an 
alarming extent, and the authorities are powerless against it. 
The same nefarious gang has numerous outrages of all sorts 
to its account, including murder. The street is the devil's 
school, and it is full of learners, who are nearly all adoles- 
cent boys and girls. Habits of vice and uncleanness are not 
started in mature life. It has been stated by a high medical 
authority that nearly half of the drunkards began to drink 
between sixteen and twenty-one. Oppenheim says that be- 
tween sixteen and twenty-one years indictable crime is more 
frequent than at any other time of life. The teacher of youth 
can not be indifferent to these tendencies. 



MIDDLE YOUTH 45 

VII. Companionship 

The social instincts have become very strong in this period. 
Not only is this seen in clubs organized for outdoor games, 
but in many other organizations of every kind, and for every 
purpose. The youth does very little alone. He naturally 
draws others about him, or attaches himself to others. The 
"gang spirit" of earlier years appears now as the "club spirit," 
the organization under more rigid rule, and for more worthy 
ends. The teacher notes this because it means that example 
is increasingly powerful now, and because he is admonished 
that he will not win by dealing with his class as individuals. _ 
He must become an adept in handling an organization. Per- 1 
haps he will form and maintain one for the sake of its value 
to him as an agency. 

The former sex-repulsion has vanished. It was an odd 
phenomenon, and will never return. Now the youth and the 
Attraction maid drift naturally into each other's society. If 
of the Sexes they are healthy and innocent, they will be 
Becomes ashamed neither of the other. It is related of a 

Pronounced clergyman, the happy father of a charming daugh- 
ter, that while preparing his Sabbath discourse he was sud- 
denly called from his desk, leaving unfinished this sentence: 
"I never see a young man of splendid physique, and the prom- 
ise of a glorious manhood almost realized, but my heart is 
filled with rapture and delight." His daughter happening to 
enter the study saw the sermon, and read the words. Sitting 
down, she wrote underneath : "My sentiments, papa, exactly." 
As there should be no impure motive in the association of 
young people, so there should be no false pretenses. The 
youth may frankly admire the maid, and the maid need not 
pretend that the young manhood that God made for her is 
an indifferent interest to her. Before very long the mating 
years will come, and the only guarantee of a happy home is an 
affection that is based upon a real acquaintance. There should 
be abundant opportunity for this, and it should begin in time. 
Of all discords, that of unfortunate matrimony is the worst. 



46 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

VIII. The Emotional Age 

Like the affections, the emotions are active and powerful 
in this period. Sometimes they seem out: of all proportion 
to the exciting cause. Listen to almost any group of young 
girls : they are not merely talking. They are laughing and 
screaming in unrestrained glee. And what is it about? A 
"darling of a dog," perhaps, or a "dream of a dress," or a 
joke upon the teacher, or a retort upon a boy. And the boys? 
Note their immoderate yelling upon almost any little occasion. 
It may be slightly removed from inanity by being made a 
class, or school, or college yell, but the noise is always taken 
good care of. Note also the extravagant emotions let loose 
upon the athletic field, or when a victorious team returns. It 
seems strange, but we must remember that it is natural, and 
not to be scorned. A gushing miss is not far from her right 
place — if she does not gush too much; and a boisterous boy 
is not wholly a monster. Our point of view makes a great 
difference in our judgments in these cases. 

It is sadly common, however, for the emotions and affections 
of middle youth to become morbid, and even terrible. This day 
we read what may be read almost any day. A girl of nineteen, 

daughter of a clergyman, of excellent character 
Disturbances anc ^ disposition, left her home for an afternoon 

walk. Not returning for some time, the parents 
became alarmed about her. Finally, they had bloodhounds 
on her trail. This led away from her home for some distance, 
and then the dogs turned about and returned to the house. 
This was interpreted as their loss of the scent and consequent 
failure, but before very long the body of the girl was found 
under six feet of water in the cistern at her home. She had 
been obliged to leave school on account of insufficient strength 
to carry her work; and, though she had said little of this, it 
had evidently preyed upon her mind until she had drowned 
herself. Not until we began to study adolescence did we real- 
ize how common these eruptions of its volcanic spirit are, and 
what their cause is. Jealousy, anger, melancholy, fear, dread, 






MIDDLE YOUTH 47 

and other impulses are constantly causing elopements, poison- 
ings, suicides, crimes, and multitudes of lesser woes. The 
entire emotional nature of the adolescent is in unstable equilib- 
rium, and in many individuals is constantly liable to a danger- 
ous explosion. One of our college students during a baseball 
game was acting as umpire, and his calls angered another 
student who was at the bat. After holding in for some time, 
the latter lost control of himself, whirled around, and struck 
the umpire on the head with his bat. The boy went to his 
room with a severe pain in his head. Before long he frothed 
at the mouth, and became unconscious. The surgeons tre- 
phined his skull, but were unable to control the hemorrhage 
caused by the fracture. Three or four hours after the acci- 
dent death ensued. And the two boys were real friends. The 
tragedies of adolescence are among the saddest in the world. 
Even the brooding melancholy, that few youth escape wholly, 
is painful and pitiful while it lasts, and the more so that father 
and mother are very likely denied those confidences that might 
prove salutary. The wise teacher knows that the fitful and 
wayward tempers of youth are not fundamental, but transient ; 
the resentments, the passions, and the headlong rushes of folly 
are but manifestations of the storm and stress of fevered 
youth. 

IX. The Doubting Age 

Probably induced by these emotions are the doubts and the 
skepticisms that occasion so much anxiety to pious parents 
and friends. The boy and the girl who have been noticeably 
trustful and even credulous as to religious truth, now show 
Everything alarming signs of independent and apparently un- 
Is governed thinking. Doctrines that are considered 

Questioned established, and even sacred, are denied, and per- 
haps openly ridiculed. Religious services lose their attractive- 
ness, and are frequently neglected. The Bible is subjected to 
a personal treatment, with the result that much of it is liberally 
denied. The young man cares nothing for venerated rites or 



48 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

doctrines, except as they are found to suit his personal and 
present taste. He does not regard the minister as a holy 
personage. Nor is the magistrate or any public official highly 
honored by him as such. He is sharp and cold in his judg- 
ments, and woe to the person or interest that puts on airs or 
asks for special privileges. The mayor and the minister are 
as good as other people, if they know as much and can do 
as much, and that is about all that is necessary from the 
youth's viewpoint. This challenging spirit is not limited to 
religion : it attacks anything and everything. The youth has 
cut pretty well loose from the past, and dogmas, and tradi- 
tions, and creeds, and rituals bore him. He can not see any- 
thing in them, anyway. The practical effects of this form 
strictly the sternest problem before the Church to-day. Among 
these are the abandonment of the Sunday-school and the 
church by the greater part of our own young men and women. 
We shall recur to this later. 

X. The Age of Opportunity 

And yet, in spite of all, adolescence is the period of the 
largest and the most fruitful opportunity of all life. The dis- 
turbances are not, in a sense, unnatural, and they are not un- 
Ail These controllable. We should scarcely expect that any, 
Disturbances period of life should be out of the reach of moral 
Yield to appeals, and fatally exposed to dreadful evils.i 

Control Q ur p ast f a ji ures h ere must be the result of our 4 

own weakness and ignorance of law. There must be some 
forces in nature and grace that can be directed upon these 
young lives, so as to guide them into safe channels. As it is, 
the number of conversions in our period is very large, almost 
the maximum. The sensitiveness to evil involves the sen- 
sitiveness to good. The active intellect is eager for the truth 
more than for all other things. The stormy emotions will sub- 
side if they are brought under the influence of Him who said 
to the waves of Galilee, "Peace, be still." The hysterias and 
the brainstorms and the melancholies are excesses which may 



MIDDLE YOUTH 49 

be avoided, and when incurred may be healed. The long plas- 
ticity of childhood has come to its last stage. Soon, now, the 
wax will harden, and no more impressions can ordinarily be 
made. The Creator has made this closing period of the form- 
ative life an unparalleled opportunity for wise moral and spir- 
itual influence. Our last effort must be the greatest. Never 
before have the problems been as difficult, or the contests as 
severe; nor anywhere have the rewards shone brighter be- 
fore us. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The Period We Study. 
II. Physical Phenomena. 

III. An Age of Activity. 

IV. An Adventurous Age. 

V. The Age of Individuation. 

VI. The Criminal Age. 

VII. Companionship. 
VIII. The Emotional Age. 

IX. The Doubting Age. 
X. An Age of Opportunity. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. Relation between religious development and physical 

and mental growth. 

2. The criminality of youth. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

i. Importance of this period. 

2. The physical traits of adolescence. 

3. The restlessness of youth. 

4. What is an individual? 

5. The criminality of young men. 

6. The social demands of youth. 

7. The explanations of marked emotions. 

8. Why does the youth turn from his home and his 

church ? 

9. The possibility of moral and spiritual control. 



CHAPTER III 

THE WISTFUL YEARS 



CHAPTER III 
THE WISTFUL YEARS 

I. The Call of the Future 

The youth is standing alone on the shore of the ocean. 
The surf breaks at his feet, and the skies are bright. The 
sea-gulls dip and swing about him. Just how he came there 
he does not know. But his thoughts are upon none of these 
things. His eyes range far over the blue deep, where nothing 
but the horizon-line invites their rest. His thoughts are all 
Confronting of the future. Whither is he going? Where 
Life and shall he abide? What are the tasks that await 

Destiny ^im? The questions that have moved half- 

formed in his mind have taken shape, and are buzzing like 
wasps about him. This big world — so busy, so noisy, so opu- 
lent, so fascinating, so cold and cruel — what has it for him? 
Has it a place and a task for him at all? Faintly, sometimes, 
he thinks he hears the sound of a bugle from off the deep. 
But he can see no island yonder, nor find any ship. He has 
been made with every token and promise of usefulness. He 
has ability, and strength, and honor, and most of all a longing 
for active service. What does the future want of him? This 
grave query grows so large in his mind as to crowd out almost 
everything else. The world beckons and recedes. Destiny 
is so near, and yet so far. 

II. The Harnessing of the Wild Steeds 

The ambitions and passions of youth, which it has pleased 
our Creator to liberate so suddenly and so perilously, are not 
destined to prove energies of destruction. They were not 
made for ruin, but for building. They were intended to be 

53 



54 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

the motive power for achievement and service. The horses 
brought out from the close stalls cavort about for a little 
time, and then they submit to the harness. The willfulness of 
New Powers y° ut h which seems invincible to parents and teach- 
to be made ers, and is so by ordinary methods, can be modi- 
Subject fied in other ways. The wild ambitions and the 
to inner foolish pursuits which resist habitual constraints 
can be rectified by new agencies, and transformed 
into laudable and satisfying enterprises. We can do nothing, 
least of all good things, without power. When the youth re- 
ceives his baptism of power, it is natural that he should be 
agitated. It is also to be expected that he should lose control 
of it at times while he is learning its control. He has been 
formerly held down and disciplined from without, but he re- 
sents that now ; and besides, he is out of the reach of parents' 
hands. The new control to which we have referred is the 
real control that persists throughout life. The old constraint 
was but temporary, and not the best. This operates from 
within. It is roused by the new-born ideals of honor, and 
purity, and business success. When the young man realizes 
that he is worth something, and can do something, and that 
perhaps riches and fame await him, he begins to take himself 
in hand. He takes the control that he will allow no other to 
have. He is willing to be governed by himself. 

Many of these traits and experiences that we have been 
occupied with are unequally distributed in life. Some individ- 
uals seem to encounter but very few of the storms or calms 
A Young that others of their class meet. But there is, 

Girl's perhaps, no normal girl who does not know by 

Longings personal experience what this lesson means. She 
has had her longings, and her hopes, and her fears deeply 
carved into her heart. Even more than her brother has she 
been anxious about the portentous years. Take the single 
interest of her husband and her home. Her brother probably 
has some hint as to what his life work may be, and where. 
But the method by which a permanent home is formed for a 



THE WISTFUL YEARS 55 

girl allows no such hints, as a general thing. Some young 
Lochinvar may come out of the West, or somebody else is 
just about as likely to arise out of the East, or the North, or 
the South — and nobody knows who or where. The young 
man may propose marriage, but the girl may not. He may 
take all sorts of initiatives, but the girl must leave the most 
important to others. Is it any wonder that the close observer 
can catch the gleams of wistfulness in the pensive eyes of al- 
most any young girl ? She can not woo her destiny. She can 
not even sit by the roadside until it passes by. She must re- 
tire modestly to her home and wait until she is decorously 
sought. This applies to courtship and marriage, and to some 
extent to other interests ; though in our day we see a new and 
extraordinary widening of the sphere of woman, whereby the 
young girl may indulge in much business freedom and so far 
work out her own problems unembarrassed. But even in these 
she must face the same uncertainties as does her brother, and 
in a greater degree. Her future is an almost uncharted sea. 
Her life journey must be begun without a guide, and she must 
travel as a pioneer and alone. 

The import of these things to the girl's teacher can not be 
set forth in adequate words. Is it any wonder that she who 
essays to teach her without reckoning with these acute condi- 
tions fails? 

III. Solitude and Meditation 

Sir Walter Besant speaks of his experience when he was 
a "hall bedroom young man." He says : "In the evening the 
place was absolutely silent. The silence sometimes helped 
Loneliness me to work, sometimes it got on my nerves and 
is in- became intolerable. I would then go out and 

tolerable wander about the streets for the sake of anima- 

tion, the crowds and the lights, or I would go half-price to the 
pit of the theater, or I would drop into a casino, and sit in 
a corner and look at the dancing. The thing was risky, but 
I came to no harm. To this day I can not think of those 



56 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

lonely evenings in my London lodging without a touch of the 
old terror . . . There are thousands of young fellows to- 
day who find, as I found every evening, the silence and loneli- 
ness intolerable." Thousands of such are in our great cities 
to-day, and there are other thousands in the sparsely settled 
regions of our land. Enforced loneliness, especially at the 
period when companionship is most demanded, and when there 
: is a perilous tendency to morbid melancholy and to depressing 
fear, is a practical condition that becomes a teacher's 
problem. 

Then there are impulses to solitude in the midst of the 
privileges of society. The young person often withdraws to 
a chamber of reflection, where he can be alone with his medi- 
tations. These are all of the future, of course — and many 
futures are finally fixed here. Numbers of people can now 
go back, in vivid memory, through many years to a little cham- 
ber, or an old attic, or a barn-loft, or a shady grove, or the 
bank of a smooth-flowing stream, where long meditations at 
last cleared up the perplexing problems of the young life, and 
led to decisions that shaped all the coming years. 

IV. Days of Decision 

It often happens that the wistful youth comes thus to his 
destiny. Who shall say that this is not the normal method of 
the fixation of life's generic choices? While he is eagerly 
watching the light in the distance, he beholds his vision. He 
Life knows that it is for him, and he is satisfied to 

Decisions seize it. All uncertainties are dissolved. The 
are Made way p ens# He wanders no longer. All future 

questions arise within the scope of his choice. It is not only 
religious decisions that are made in a moment of time. It is 
so with others, and all are thus natural. Mr. Childs, the 
Philadelphia journalist, said that when he was a boy he was 
one day walking by the building where the Ledger was printed. 
He was poor and without prospects. But he had a revelation. 
He stopped suddenly and said, "When I get to be a man I am 



THE WISTFUL YEARS 57 

going to own that building." He kept that aim before him, 
and finally realized it. 

Macaulay tells us that one bright summer day the boy, 
Warren Hastings, then just seven years old, lay on the bank 
of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of his 
house to join the Isis. There, as threescore and ten years 
later he told the tale, rose in his mind a scheme, which, 
through all the turns of his eventful career, was never aban- 
doned. He would recover the estate that belonged to his 
fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This purpose, 
formed in infancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intellect 
expanded and as his fortune rose. He pursued his plan with 
that calm but indomitable force of will which was the most 
striking peculiarity of his character. When under a tropical 
sun he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his hopes, amidst all 
the cares of war, finance, and legislation, still pointed to 
Daylesford. And when his public life, so singularly check- 
ered with good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length 
closed forever, it was to Daylesford that he came to die. 

V. At the Altar 

Our period is one of those few that are marked by num- t 
bers of Christian decisions. The youth finds the altar of con- 
secration. It is a time when he feels most keenly the attrac- 
tions of Jesus Christ, and hears His voice, saying, "Follow 
A Period of Me." Coe says : "The broader, deeper ques- 
Religious timing as to the meaning of life, together with 
Consecration the blossoming of the social instinct, brings the 
need of a new and more deeply personal realization of the 
content of religion. The quickened conscience, with its thirst 
for absolute righteousness; the quickened intellect, with its 
thirst for absolute truth; the quickened aesthetic sense, with 
its intuitions of a beauty that eye hath not seen and ear hath 
not heard; the quickened social sense, with its longing for 
perfect and eternal companionship — in short, the new mean- 
ingfulness and mystery of life — all this tends to bring in a 



58 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

new and distinct epoch in religious experience/' So we find 
religious experiences of a vivid and permanent type abounding 
in youth. E. G. Lancaster studied 598 miscellaneous cases, 
518 of which showed new religious inclinations between the 
ages of 12 and 25, and mostly between 12 and 20. If the child 
has not given himself to Christ, it is likely that he will do so in 
youth. If he has become a Christian early, he will doubtless 
have brighter and deeper experiences in the age that we are 
studying. Of 776 graduates of a well-known theological semi- 
nary, the largest number were converted at the age of 16, and 
the average age of conversion was 16.4. Of 526 officers of the 
Young Men's Christian Association in the United States and 
the British provinces, the average age of conversion was al- 
most identical with this, namely, 16.5. In Coe's report of re- 
ligious awakenings, the highest numbers are at 13, 15, 17, and 
20 years of age. He adds : "It is agreed that the adolescent 
religious change comes with girls a year or two earlier than 
with boys — a significant evidence of the correlation of the re- 
ligious with the physical change ; for practically the same dif- 
ference exists in both cases." The same authority points out 
a distinction between the first awakening and the decisive 
awakening, observation disclosing both of these in many lives. 
The former occurs in the majority of cases at 13 years and 
the latter at 17 years. Of a large number of cases (1,784 
men) the average age of decisive awakening or conversion 
was precisely 16.4 years. In the case of second experiences, 
often called sanctification, the maximum age has been found 
to be 20 years, which also falls within our period. It is wor- 
thy of notice that the curve that rises to this height at 20 
years, falls away rapidly thereafter. 

It should not be forgotten that these phenomena are gen- 
eral, not peculiar to our own religion. They belong to the 
common human nature. If the relation of adolescence to any 
religion is studied, an interesting series of pious ceremonies 
will be uncovered signalizing the initiation of youths into man- 
hood and the covenants of religion. Even the aborigines of 

3 



THE WISTFUL YEARS 59 

this country practiced such rites. It is said that "when a 
youth of the Omaha tribe of Indians arrives, at puberty he is 
sent forth into the wilderness to fast in solitude for four days. 
To develop self-control he is provided with bows and arrows, 
but is forbidden to kill any creature. Arrived on the moun- 
tains, he lifts up his voice to the Great Spirit in a song that 
has been sung under such circumstances from before the time 
that the white man first set foot upon these shores : 'God ! 
here, poor and needy, I stand !' The melody is soulful, so ap- 
pealingly prayerful that one can scarcely believe it to be of 
barbarous origin. Yet, what miracles may not religious feel- 
ing work ! The boy is waiting, in fact, for a vision from on 
high — a revelation to be vouchsafed to him personally, and to 
show what his life is to be, whether that of hunter, or of 
warrior, or of medicine-man." This savage, standing alone 
on his mount of devotion, might almost be taken as a picture 
of the wistful years of universal youth. In his solitude he 
faces ultimate mystery and destiny. He supplicates his Maker 
for that aid, without which he can not make life's supreme 
choice. The end of his longing is God's plan for him. 

In previous years the soul has c herishe d_jdeals, but not as 
now. Th e ideals of adolescence ar e broader, a nd truer, and 
richer. They are also of a permanent natur e. The Inej&L life 
h as quickened the m, the (new vision has clarifie d 
Ideal them, and the ^new motives have crowned them . 

Henceforth they will o nly change as they grow 
stronger. The youth's sole mn yearnings^ are but the token 
of their present power over him. Because nj Lfhp$e he lives 
now in the futu re and s hapes all his plans (forward.^ LowelF 
reveals his sympathy with, and his admiration for, the ado- 
lescent in the lines: 

"Of all the myriad moods of mind 

That through the soul come thronging, 
Which one was e'er so dear, so kind, 
So beautiful as Longing !" 

1* *ifi *f* 5j* H* • 



60 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

"Still through our paltry stir and strife, 

Glows down the wished Ideal, 
And Longing molds in clay what Life 
Carves in the marble Real." 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The Call of the Future. 

II. The Harnessing of the Wild Steeds. 

III. Solitude and Meditation. 

IV. Days of Decision. 
V. At the Altar. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. The conversions of this period. 

2. Experiences akin to conversion outside Christianity. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. What turns the mind of the youth to the future? 

2. When should the parents cease control? 

3. The social independence of young women. 

4. The meaning of youth's loneliness. 

5. The significance of early life decisions. 

6. Youth as a period of conversion. 

7. The significance of other similar experiences. 

8. The power of ideals. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE TEACHER'S FIRST PUPIL 



CHAPTER IV 
THE TEACHER'S FIRST PUPIL 

I. The First Word 

You can do it. Let us hasten to say this. You can teach : 
that is, you can make a teacher of yourself. Not every per- 
son can succeed in the teacher's vocation, of course; but the 
one who has come thus far is doubtless able to go on and 
prosper. Why is this said? Because so many are discour- 
aged in spite of the things that are said to encourage and to 
help in books like this, and in conventions. It is necessary 
A High to set up a standard, and many have contrasted 

Ideal for their own limited attainments with this, and have 

Inspiration then giyen up Qn the spotj sat i s fi ec i t h a t they 

could never come up to it. We wish to fend against this 
in the outset. Do not be discouraged. Let us tell you 
freely what a zealous teacher can do for himself, and then 
regard this ideal rather than your own inexperience. The 
possibilities of self-improvement are doubtless far beyond what 
you have ever imagined. We are not going to talk about the 
pupil or the teaching process first, but about the teacher. His \ 
first pupil is himself, and this is where he should begin. There 
is a way of getting at his work which will enable him to avoid 
personal distress and failure. Ideals should stimulate rather 
than depress. If one is wholly normal, he will be helped by 
them. "But I know that I could never reach such exalted 
excellence as that?" do you say? What of it? You will rise, 
anyway. All that you win, you gain. Emerson was not afraid 
to advise us to hitch our wagon to a star, and Lowell admon- 
ishes us that "Not failure, but low aim, is crime." 

63 3 



64 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

II. The Teacher Teaches by What He Is 

There is nothing to be said that is more important than 
this. All teachers must regard this principle, but the Sunday- 
school teacher more than any other. For there is more of 
Influence the moral and the spiritual in his work. Public 
of First school teachers may (perhaps) make the knowl- 

Importance edge of books pr imary, but the Sunday-school 
t teacher must always put character first. His principal con- 
cern is not so much letters and figures, as purity and truth. 
He needs knowledge, and much of it, of course; but knowl- 
edge is not the end. He uses it for character formation, and | 
this is his great work. Here is the reason for the first em- 
phasis on the character of the teacher. There is a grand 
principle in the social world, whereby the character of one 
person modifies the character of another, without the formal- 
ity of classes and lessons, and even without a spoken word. 
St. Francis of Assisi once called a young monk to him and 
said, "Let us go out and preach to-day," to which the younger 
monk assented. St. Francis led him out into the street of the 
city, and up and down many streets and alleys all day long. 
At evening the young man asked, "But when are we to begin 
to preach, father ?" The reply was, "We have been preaching 
all day, my son." As they preached we preach. By our daily 
walk and conversation we make impressions for good or for 
ill upon all we meet. And upon the sensitive minds of the 
young the impressions thus made are deep and lasting. 

Now, we can all be good, and we can make ourselves bet- 
ter by many means of grace. The teacher's first desire should 
be to make himself a good man, and his encouragement will 
be that every effort that he may make toward this end will 
surely operate successfully. On this point Burton and Mat- 
hews say : "The student should study in a sympathetic spirit ; 
and this implies that he is to endeavor to put himself under 
divine influence by prayer. Having endeavored to get at the 
truth precisely as it is, and to bring himself as nearly as pos- 



THE TEACHER'S FIRST PUPIL 65 

sible to the Author of all truth, he should, in the third place, 
have such confidence in that truth, and in that Author, as to 
believe that spiritual growth is inevitable. As a man has con- 
fidence in the power of God as revealed in the outer world, 
so should he trust God as He is revealed in the laws of human 
nature. Divine truth will not return to its Maker void of re- 
sults. He who seeks to apprehend exactly the teachings of 
prophet, or apostle, or the Christ, and who is willing to incor- 
porate in his conduct such truth as fast as it is revealed, need 
not be seeking for quantitative spiritual growth. Such a 
student is working, not only patiently, but scientifically, and 
such study can no more fail to produce spiritual character 
than the earth can fail to produce a harvest when once the 
seed is planted in it." 

Every young teacher can have this encouragement, that as 
he teaches most by what his own character really is, and as 
this can be made what it needs to be, it is within his power to 
become a true teacher in this first and most important respect. 

1. The New Emphasis Upon Personality. There was 
never so much attention paid to personal influence as now, and 
this is because of a changed notion of what influence is. As 
lately as within the life of this English word, 
the Person "influence" has wholly changed its meaning. Ac- 
cording to the Authorized Version of the Bible, 
Jehovah asked Job this question, "Canst thou bind the sweet 
influences of Pleiades?" In the Revised Version the question 
is "Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades?" Shake- 
speare uses the word ten times, and every time in the same 
sense, which is not our sense at all, but that of the supposed 
power of the stars and the planets to affect human actions and 
lives. Only as far back as the time of the above citations as- 
trology was a respectable science, and people generally seemed 
to accept its teachings. But we have got beyond that nowa- 
days. We no longer believe in these far-away agencies, and 
so we have taken the word "influence," which was coined to 
express them, and changed its meaning so that it now refers 
5 3 



66 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

mainly to persons. We can ignore or defy the planets, but we 
pause reverently before the stellar graces of a human spirit, 
to which we trace most of the real forces that shape character. 
Much as we esteem knowledge, we value the virtues of the 
teacher more. In the close contacts of the Sunday-school 
class character impressions are profoundly and permanently 
made. If Emerson could write to his daughter that he cared 
not so much what her studies were, but was greatly concerned 
as to who her teachers were to be, how much more interested 
should parents be in the personality of him who is to assume 
charge of these Sunday-school class interviews, in which so 
many moral and spiritual potencies reside ! 

2. Lessons from Life. If this were mere theory, we 
might doubt it, since the claims for personal influence are so 
large. But the facts of experience talk even louder than the 
Experience theory. We have read of one who testifies that 
Testifies to after sixty years he remembers his first teacher 
Influence as ^ e swee t e st and most beautiful woman of his 

whole life; that he can remember, as if it were yesterday, the 
exquisite neatness of the dress she wore, and the flowers that 
she always brought for the desk. This he reckoned as one of 
the most potent influences that ever touched his life. Says 
another : "The first requisite of the teacher is that she should 
make herself personally attractive, so far as may be, to the 
children. The teacher, whether she will or not, is the first ob- 
ject lesson the pupil ever receives in school. The children 
should never see their teacher other than serene, and cheery, 
and radiant with sympathy." 

Every successful preacher illustrates this principle. Though 
he does "preach the Word," he enforces the revelation far 
more by what he is than by all he says. It is the man behind 
the sermon that counts, just as truly as it is "the man behind 
the gun." Many a faithful minister of Christ is without 
extraordinary oratorical power, yet achieves the highest suc- 
cess ; but none succeed if their character is corrupt, or even 
unsympathetic. Jesus Christ is the supreme illustration of 



THE TEACHER'S FIRST PUPIL 67 

influence. There are gravitations in two worlds : the physical, 
which pulls the planets and the suns ; and the spiritual, which 
proceeds from Jesus Christ. This latter is growing through 
the centuries and millenniums, and will ultimately draw all 
men to Him. He is the Exemplar of all His followers in 
this. John Baptist showed the power of personality. v He was 
but "a voice crying in the wilderness," and yet he compelled 
great throngs of people to travel far to hear him, and it is 
written that they were baptized by him in Jordan, confessing 
their sins. Phillips Brooks finds that preaching "has in it 
two essential elements, truth and personality. Neither of 
these can it spare, and still be preaching. The truth must 
come really through the person, not merely over his lips, not 
merely into his understanding and out through his pen. It 
must come through his character, his affections, his whole 
intellectual and moral being. I think that, granting equal 
intelligence and study, here is the great difference which we 
feel between two peachers of the Word : the gospel has come 
over one of them : it has come through the other." Though 
he spoke as a preacher rather than as a teacher, we can not 
fail to be impressed by this utterance of that prince of inter- 
preters of the Bible by the spoken word. 

Henry Clay Trumbull declares that he was personally in- 
fluenced, as a Sunday-school scholar, a great deal more than 
he was ever taught. He says : "There was comparatively 
little of thorough or systematic instruction in Bible truth 
in my boyhood days ; but there was influencing then, as in the 
days of David and of Paul, and as there is to-day. I can 
particularly recall two of my teachers out of several. One 
made it his whole endeavor to instruct. He declared the truth 
explicitly, and with plainness ; but he was at no special pains 
to influence his scholars personally. The other was a man of 
less knowledge, but was possessed with zeal for souls. His 
"teaching" was out of the question-book, antf was somewhat 
perfunctory. But when the lesson was over, then that teacher 
would reach forward to his class, and laying his hands ten- 



68 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

derly on the knees of one scholar and another, would look 
into the scholar's eyes with eyes that were brimming with 
loving tears, and would say with a tremulous tenderness that 
carried the weight of his whole soul into the words : 'My 
dear boy, I do wish that you would love Jesus and give Him 
your whole heart!' All the instruction out of the question- 
book of one of those classes, and out of the great brain of the 
teacher of the other class, has long ago passed from the mind 
of the scholar who tells of this ; but the influence of the per- 
sistent pleader for Christ, and for souls, is fresh and potent 
to-day; and the pressure of those loving hands on that schol- 
ar's knee is felt, after forty years, as while those hands still 
rested there." 

III. The Intellectual Qualification 

This also is to be looked after. Dr. Gregory gives as the 

law of the teacher, "The teacher must know that which he 

would teach." The Divine Teacher warned the blind against 

trying to lead the blind. Our religion is a system of truth, 

and truth implies knowledge. There is no knowl- 

Indispensable edge but of the truth - To decry knowledge is to 
disparage the truth. Paul told Timothy to be 
"apt to teach," and bade him "give diligence to present thy- 
self approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be 
ashamed, handling aright the word of truth." Many have 
essayed to handle the Word, and in many ways, but we can 
not improve upon the Apostle's plan. There is no other way 
to do this than by giving diligence. We must work for it. 
We must not grudge the expenditure of such time upon our 
Bible as the sportsman bestows upon his horses and dogs, or 
the fine lady upon her gowns and ribbons. It is worth while 
to study the Bible. The teacher's knowledge of what he 
stands up to teach makes him a power. 

Let us never forget that knowledge and goodness go to- 
gether, just as ignorance and sin belong to the same evil kin. 
Carlyle puts it thus pungently: "If the devil were passing 

3 



THE TEACHER'S FIRST PUPIL 69 

through my country, and applied to me for any instruction on 
any truth or fact of this universe, I should wish to give it to 
him. He is less a devil, knowing that three and three make 
six, than if he did n't know it ; a light spark, though of the 
faintest, is in this fact. If he knew facts enough, continuous 
light would dawn upon him. To his amazement he would 
understand what this universe is, on what principles it con- 
ducts itself, and would perhaps cease to be a devil." There 
may be a truth in this for us. It is certain that truth is an 
attribute of God, and that according to the prayer of our Lord 
we are to be sanctified through His truth. Think not that 
the pursuit of spiritual knowledge is irksome; it is one of the 
most fascinating things in the world. Think not that the 
storehouse of truth will soon be exhausted: it is filled from 
the skies, and the more we learn the more there seems to be 
for us to learn. It is a common experience of teachers that, 
however large their class or bright their pupils, they them- 
selves learn more from every lesson than any of them. 

The teacher may thus become more of an example to his 
pupils than in mere behavior. He can influence them by his 
own love for the truth, his fondness for study, and patience 
The Teacher in seeking those best things that do not always 
an Example come speedily. It will not hurt him in their esti- 
m Knowledge ma ti on jf they see him growing in knowledge : 
quite the contrary. They will be more likely to persevere, 
through believing in the suprising proficiency of the zealous, 
if they see their teacher manifesting this proficiency day by 
day. They will be more likely to allow the necessary time 
for the long process of education, if they see their teacher al- 
lowing this time without haste and without rest. William 
James tells of a visit paid by some accomplished Hindoos to 
Harvard University, who talked freely of life and philosophy. 
"More than one of them has confided to me that the sight of 
our faces, all contracted as they are with the habitual Ameri- 
can over-intensity and anxiety of expression, and our un- 
graceful and distorted attitudes when sitting, made on him a 



70 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

very painful impression. T do not see/ says one, 'how it is 
possible for you to live as you do, without a single minute in 
your day deliberately given to tranquillity and meditation. It 
is an invariable part of our Hindoo life to retire for at least 
half an hour daily into silence, to relax our muscles, govern 
our breathing, and meditate on eternal things. Every Hindoo 
child is trained to this from an early age.' The good fruits 
of this wer£ obvious in the physical repose and lack of tension, 
and the wonderful smoothness and calmness of facial expres- 
sion, and imperturbability of manner of these Orientals. I 
felt that my countrymen were depriving themselves of an es- 
sential grace of character." It is well within the province and 
the privilege of the teacher to illustrate the moods and dispo- 
sitions of the spiritual truthseeker, as well as to present the 
theorems and the diagrams of knowledge. The pathways of 
the teacher and the pupil are not as far apart as we sometimes 
think. The model teacher is he who enters deeply into all 
the life of him whom he would instruct and inspire. 

IV. A Special Inducement 

The principles of this lesson are of general application, but 
they apply with special force to the Senior Grade. The ado- 
lescent, with his high ideals, his keen insight, his thirst for 
knowledge and greater thirst for sympathy, is pre-eminently 
The Senior appreciative of the teacher that is strong and 
Pupil Ap- true. All that the senior's teacher does for him 
preciative of by way of self-discipline richly repays the effort. 
Virtue and ^ n j i\ lcn this combination of heart and brain is 
the most desirable of all the gifts of power. Not 
the banker with his millions, nor the public officer at his desk, 
nor the king on his throne wields the real power of the teacher 
whose heart is warm with affection, and whose mind is en- 
riched with learning. For his is the greater soul. Emerson 
says : "Who has more soul than I masters me, though he 
should not raise his finger. Round him I must revolve by 
the gravitation of spirits ; who has less I rule with like facil- 



THE TEACHER'S FIRST PUPIL 71 . 

sty." And again: "Always as much virtue as there is, so 
much appears ; as much goodness as there is, so much 
reverence it commands. All the devils respect virtue. The 
high, the generous, the self-devoted sect will always instruct 
and command mankind. Never a sincere word was lost 
utterly. Never a magnanimity fell to the ground." 

Arnold of Rugby was an illustrious example of the teacher 
that we have tried to set forth in this lesson, and his success 
with adolescents was unexcelled. His scholars used to say 
that a boy who was under his influence at Rugby could not find 
it in his heart to do a notably mean thing, because the boy's 
honor was made so much of in the teacher's teaching and 
practice. One of his boys, grown to manhood, speaks thus of 
this immortal teacher: 'The tall, gallant form, the kindling 
eye, the voice — now soft as the low notes of a flute, now clear 
and stirring as the call of the light infantry bugle — of him 
who stood there Sunday after Sunday, witnessing and plead- 
ing for his Lord, the King of righteousness, and love, and 
glory, with whose Spirit he was filled, and with whose power 
he spoke." "What was it, after all, that seized and held these 
three hundred boys, dragging them out of themselves, willing 
or unwilling, for twenty minutes on Sunday afternoons? 
. . . We could n't enter into that we heard . . . But 
we listened as all boys in their better moods will listen, to a 
man whom we felt to be, with all his heart and soul and 
strength, striving against whatever was mean and unmanly 
and unrighteous in our little world. It was not the cold, clear 
voice of one giving advice and warning from the serene 
heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but 
the warm, living voice of one who was fighting for us by our 
sides, and calling us to help him and ourselves and one an- 
other. And so, wearily and little by little, but surely and 
steadily, on the whole, it was brought home to the young boy 
for the first time the meaning of his life — that it was no fools' 
nor sluggards' paradise into which he had wandered by 
chance, but a battle-field, ordained from of old, where there 



72 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and 
the stakes are life and death." 

Rarely has the senior teacher's triumph been as clearly dis- 
cerned and as truly described as this. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The First Word. 
II. The Teacher Teaches by What He Is. 

i. The new emphasis upon personality. 
2. Lessons from life. 
III. The Intellectual Qualification. 
IV. A Special Inducement. 

Topics for Special Study: 

i. Great teachers of religion. 

2. The enrichment of personality. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

i. Can everybody teach successfully? 

2. Are the requirements of a teacher set too high? 

3. The teaching value of influence. 

4. The lifting power of ideals. 

5. The new emphasis upon personality. 

6. What are your personal estimates of your teachers? 

7. Can one teach at all without knowing? 

8. The importance of truth in our work. 

9. Can one be a teacher and a learner at the same time? 
10. How much is the senior's teacher likely to be appre- 
ciated ? 



CHAPTER V 

CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION 



CHAPTER V 
CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION 

I. The Teacher's Consecration 

This is not a consecration of talk only, nor even of prayer. 
It is real. It means something — and much. It does not ex- 
haust itself in feverish exhortations, or in passionate vows. 
More than Very likely it was not born in a "consecration 
Words and service'' at all. It is not an end in itself, and was 
Emotion not set up to ^ e WO rshiped. It looks beyond it- 

self to real service and fruitfulness. It is a pity that this 
beautiful word has been used so much to designate an emo- 
tional exercise that does not pass over into deeds. This lat- 
ter is not consecration at all. With the earnest soul there is 
a work out yonder to be done, and that is the end. The vow 
of consecration has no meaning but in the faithful pursuit of 
that end. The teacher's consecration means just this. It is 
fulfilled in the nurture of souls. It is born of the love of 
souls, which is a flame kindled in the heart by the Divine 
Lover himself. It can not rest in any selfish state — even in a 
selfish ecstasy. It belongs to a religion which can live only 
in the service of others. 

i. An Intelligent Consecration. Many a man commits 
himself to an enterprise that he has not studied and does not 
know much about. Consequently, when he encounters diffi- 
Takes culties he hesitates, and when opposition arises 

Account of he quits. An intelligent consecration is made in ! 
Obstacles full yiew of possible difficulties and toils. Such 
was the devotion of Him who said, "For their sakes I sanc- 
tify myself." The Savior made His vow for others, and He 
knew that it meant the cross. When the Sunday-school 
teacher encounters heedlessness, misunderstandings, volatile 

75 s 



76 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

minds, and hard hearts, he has no thought of surrender, 
because he has forecast all these things. He has stocked up 
in advance with patience and good-will and inflexible de- 
termination. This is the only way the work can be done. 
It is work — not a Sabbath pastime. 

Burbank says: "But remember that just as there must be 
in plant cultivation great patience, unswerving devotion to 
the truth, the highest motive, absolute honesty, unchanging 
love, so must it be in the cultivation of a child. If it be 
worth while to spend ten years upon the ennoblement of a 
plant, be it fruit, tree, or flower, is it not worth while to 
spend ten years upon a child in this precious formative 
period, fitting it for the place it is to occupy in the world? 
Is not a child's life vastly more precious than the life of a 
plant? Under the old order of things plants kept on their 
course largely uninfluenced in any new direction. The plant- 
breeder changes their lives to make them better than they 
ever were before. Here in America, in the midst of this 
vast crossing of species, we have an unparalleled opportunity 
to work upon these sensitive human natures. We may 
surround them with right influences. We may steady them 
in right ways of living. We may bring to bear upon them, 
just as we do upon plants, the influence of light and air, 
of sunshine and abundant, well-balanced food. We may give 
them music and laughter. We may teach them as we teach 
the plants to be sturdy and self-reliant. We may be honest 
with them, as we are obliged to be honest with plants." Is 
it asking too much to require as much of the teachers of 
souls as the plant-breeders find it necessary to give, and are 
glad to give? 

2. Two Illustrations. The Sunday-school work is the 
grandest expression of consecration in the world: real con- 
secration, we mean — the kind that the Master loves and re- 
wards. Think of the million and a half of faithful workers 
in this country who go out every Sunday without pay. to 
train their neighbors' children in the all-important truths of 



CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION 77 

religion. The Sunday-school was born in consecration, and 
without this it never could have lived. 

Dr. Trumbull tells us that nearly a hundred years ago, 
in the First Congregational Church of Norwichtown, Conn., 
a girl was converted and joined the Church. Learning some- 
thing of Sunday-school work being done else- 
Examples where, she became interested in it and gathered 
Real Thing a ^^ e scno °l * n tne galleries of her home 
church. But the church authorities deemed this 
a desecration of God's day and of God's house, and for- 
bade her the use of the church galleries. She withdrew her 
little charge to a schoolhouse. But public sentiment, includ- 
ing the expressed opinion of her pastor, secured her ex- 
pulsion from that building also. It is reliably stated that 
her pastor, passing the schoolhouse while her school was 
in session, shook his ivory-headed cane toward the building 
and exclaimed with indignation, "You imps of Satan, doing 
the devil's work !" What would this girl have done with- 
out that spirit of devotion that makes martyrs? She was 
no sooner put out of the schoolhouse than she brought her 
school to the church steps, where she maintained her work 
until at last the church was again opened to her, and her 
Sunday-school had won its right to live. This heroic girl 
afterward married a young minister who, by and by, took 
her with him to Ceylon as a missionary's wife. 

The place of consecration in the work of to-day is illus- 
trated by another young girl whose heart was touched by 
the spiritual needs of ten boys in her village. She was 
very young and had never taught, but the boys wanted her, 
and this she considered her call. They were not good boys, 
and die little town in which they lived, with not over four 
or five thousand inhabitants, had forty saloons. She was 
a wise little woman, for she set to work at once to make 
herself the trusted personal friend of each one of those boys. 
She knew instinctively that the storms of adolescence would 
rise and the floods would beat upon the precious human 



78 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

houses intrusted to her care, and so she dug deep into the 
solid confidence and affection of those boys. And then came 
the terrible ordeal. The boys grew tall and mingled with 
other young men. They learned to smoke, and began to 
taste beer, and many were the seductions that wooed them 
from the Sunday-school. "I had a dreadful time with those 
boys for four years," said the little teacher, "but I could 
not and would not let them go." Asked how she could 
possibly hold them against the evil influences that beset them, 
she said : "Well, I followed them. As soon as a boy 
absented himself from the Sunday-school, I went after him. 
I had their confidence, and they would tell me, even when 
they did pretty bad things, which of course was a great 
help. They were wide-awake, active boys, and wanted to 
try about every new thing, and they did; but I tried to keep 
along with them. At one time they formed themselves into 
a club, rented a room, and grew old very fast. I used to 
tremble in those days, and had reason to ! But I did not 
give them up. It took a good deal of time to follow them 
up. There have been weeks in succession when I was out 
every evening looking after my boys. But I thought it 
would pay." And it did. All but two became Christians by 
the time this story was told, and these two were men of 
excellent principles. The beloved teacher Tholuck, who won 
great numbers of students to Christ, was once asked the 
secret of his success. He replied, "By seeking and follow- 
ing." We can think of no better rule for the consecrated 
teacher than this. Is it not the Master's own? 

II. The Firstf raits of Consecration 

These are not teaching. President ¥/arren used to say 
that a call to preach is a call to prepare to preach. And 
so the first thing that consecration impels to is getting ready 
for the work. There is no denying that the work is hard. 
It is only flippant to say that anybody can teach children 
without any trouble. A cynical French physician once ac- 



CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION 79 

cused his brethren of putting drugs that they knew little 
about into bodies that they knew less about to cure diseases 
about which they knew nothing at all. The Sunday-school 
teacher must know the Bible and the youth and 
Consecration be f am jii ar w i t h t h e j aws f teaching and the 

Preparation me thods of work. Not one of these is easy, and 
yet all are charming to him who keeps the fire 
burning in his heart. It is a soul-satisfying pursuit to strive 
to master the great principles that will make one wise and 
strong and successful. Here is a lust for power that is 
entirely laudable. 

A physician was driving through a South Jersey village 
one morning and saw a man amusing a crowd of spectators 
with the antics of a trick dog. The doctor pulled up and 
watched the fun a while, and then said: "My dear man, 
how do you manage to train your dog that way? I can't 
teach mine a single trick." The man addressed looked up, 
and with that simple, rustic look, replied, "Well, you see 
it 's this way — you have to know more 'n the dog or you 
can't learn him nuthin'." There are several streaks of wis- 
dom in this homely reply. The teacher must deal with 
knowledge, and he must have a larger stock in trade to do 
business with than those with whom he deals. As the dog 
trainer must not only know the tricks, but also the dog 
and the way to get the tricks into him and out of him, so 
must the teacher's knowledge cover much more than the 
mere facts that he would communicate. 

III. The Book We Teach 

Our religion is a revelation, and the record of this reve- 
lation is given in a Book. Doubtless God might have re- 
vealed Himself in many another way, but doubtless He did 
give us His will in the Holy Scriptures. Every Sunday- 
school is a Bible school, whether it is so called or not. If 
it does not deal primarily and constantly with the Bible, it 
can not prosper in the thing whereto God ordained it. There 



80 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

are many who have misgivings about this, and are inwardly 
opposed to the thought of our religion as a system of truth 
that must be known by study. They tend continually to a 
The Bible religion of the emotions, and are impatient of 
Must be the exaltation of knowledge — even the knowledge 

Known by of God and the soul. It is only recently that 
Study t k e Bjki e h as been translated into the common 

tongue so that it is possible for everybody to read it. One 
huge Church still grudges its members the Bible and tries 
to keep it from them, under the operation of the maxim, 
"Ignorance is the mother of devotion." Even among Prot- 
estants there has been too much of this feeling. The Bible 
teacher's preparation must still fight for recognition, just as 
the preacher had to contend for his special preparation in 
the seminaries. "Open thy mouth and I will fill it," is a 
text that has been quoted times without number to dissuade 
the young preacher from the study of God's Word. A 
"spiritual" religion is held by many to be able to dispense 
with the knowledge that comes by study, because "spiritual" 
means "emotional" to them. The result has been such a 
neglect of the Bible that it sometimes seems a wonder that 
the Church has made progress. Not that the Book has been 
ignored. It has been held in reverential awe as a talisman 
or an idol : a thing to be worshiped and defended at any 
cost, provided it should not be studied! 

An old legend will help show this. There was once a 
saint, a holy man of God, who taught and preached and 
worked among his little flock of human beings day by day, 
and tried to lead them in the paths of usefulness and duty. 
And perhaps they did not always understand him; yet they 
loved and reverenced him. And it came to pass that one 
night as he lay asleep the very innermost truth of God, 
hidden from him before, came to him in a dream written 
on three bars of sunlight; and when he awoke he began 
to write the precious message on a scroll of parchment, and 
he wrote for many days. Then it came to pass that he was 



CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION 81 

bidden by the Spirit to journey into a far country, and he 
said to his people: "I will not leave you helpless, nor lack- 
ing teaching; for the very truth of God has been revealed 
to me, and I have transcribed it on this roll of parchment. 
Live by it, I beseech you, and it will make you free." After 
many years, when he returned to the place of his former 
labors, he saw the people prostrated before the high altar, 
and he was glad in his heart, and said, 'Truly, my people are 
worshiping the Most High God." As he neared the altar he 
saw the roll of parchment in the most holy place ; but alas ! the 
seals were unbroken. The people had been worshiping the 
parchment all these many years, and had never broken the 
seals to read the innermost truth that was written therein. 
He who would teach must break squarely with this tend- 
ency to idolize the Scriptures, rather than to use them. He 
must pore over the sacred volume as the merchant does 
over his ledger, in a lifetime habit. He must gather all 
available helps to interpretation, and help to withstand those 
who oppose revisions of the text and the giving of the Word 
to the people. He will welcome the broader opportunities 
of Bible and cognate study afforded to-day, and will rejoice 
in the new movement toward Bible study in teacher-training 
classes. President Grant's message to Dr. Trumbull is an 
utterance of comprehensive importance: "Hold on to the 
Bible as the sheet-anchor of your liberties : write its pre- 
cepts on your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To 
that Book are we indebted for all our progress in civilization; 
to it we must look as the guide for our future." 

IV. The Science of Souls 

There is need also of a careful and patient study of those 
The Study whom we would teach. This is comparatively a 
of the new branch of study, but it has already come to 

1,111)11 the rank of a science. Every human soul is a 

mystery that does not give up its secrets as the maple scat- 
ters its seeds. Hamlet's reproof of Guildenstern is a classic 
6 s 



82 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

illustration of this. He asks Guildenstern to play upon a pipe. 
The dialogue runs thus : 

Guil. — My lord, I can not. 

Ham. — I pray you. 

Guil. — Believe me, I can not. 

Ham. — I do beseech you. 

Guil. — I know no touch of it, my lord. 

Ham. — It is as easy as lying: govern these ventages with 
your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, 
and it will discourse most excellent music. Look you, these 
are the stops. 

Guil. — But these I can not command to any utterance of 
harmony. I have not the skill. 

Ham. — Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you 
make of me ! You would play upon me ; you would seem 
to know my stops ; you would pluck out the heart of my 
mystery; you would sound me from the lowest note to 
the top of my compass : and there is much music, ex- 
cellent voice, in this little organ; yet you can not make it 
speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on 
than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you 
can fret me, yet you can not play upon me. 

Neither the parent nor the teacher can play, untaught, 
upon the soul of the child. In the special studies of one 
grade alone there will be found an abundance of things to 
be learned. 

V. The Art of Teaching 

This is a third great field for the teacher's study. Beyond 
all the native aptitudes, whatever they may be, there are 
many things concerning teaching that come by study. The 
experiences of many generations of teachers have 
Pedagogy been gathered, compared, and used for the deduc- 
tion of great principles that are full of help to 
the teacher of to-day. We may greatly enrich our own ability 
to teach by appropriating the things that others have learned. 



CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION 83 

Both their successes and their, failures may be found in- 
structive. 

For pursuing this work there are now available such 
facilities as are furnished by text-books, conventions, and 
institutes. A great efflorescence of these for the Sunday- 
school teacher marks our day, and they are increasing in 
number and value. We have almost come to the time when 
any teacher, however isolated or limited in resources, may 
enjoy the advantage of a real training. 

VI. Incentives to Preparation 

Almost any field will repay in its harvest whatever was 
expended upon it in the way of fertilization and tillage. 
The richest harvests in the world come from human souls. 
The Inasmuch as the Sunday-school teacher deals with 

Teacher's the best Book in the world and the grandest 
Reward revelations that heaven ever gave, with the high- 

est and purest virtues as their end, and the presence and the 
aid of the Master in the work, it is to be expected that 
he, if successful, will attain to the largest rewards for his 
toil. 

The Bertillion experts tell us that the imprint of a baby's 
thumb will serve to identify the grown man years after, when 
his imprint is placed beside the former one. It is given to 
the teacher of spiritual truth to trace lines upon the growing 
soul that will never be obliterated. Agassiz was one of the 
most industrious of scientists and he achieved a great work 
in his life. But when he was asked what he considered his 
greatest work in America, he replied, "The training of three 
men." Says Holland, "We can raise more Christians by 
juvenile Christian culture than by adult conversion a thousand 
to one." The teacher's work is pure, delightful, of certain 
fruition, and of permanent results in soul culture. 

It is the hope of the Church and the Nation as well. 
Without it both religion and patriotism perish. It does the 
work of all reforms and missions and philanthropies. And 



84 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

it reacts in unnumbered blessings upon the teacher's own 
soul. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The Teacher's Consecration. 

II. The Firstfruits of Consecration. 

III. The Book We Teach. 

IV. The Science of Souls. 
V. The Art of Teaching. 

VI. Incentives to Preparation. 

Topics for Special Study: 

i. Lessons for the teacher from the plant breeder. 
2. The contributions of psychology to the teaching art. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. What makes consecration real and effective? 

2. What is the source of consecration? 

3. The Sunday-school as an example of consecration. 

4. What is the first great task that consecration urges? 

5. The content of spirituality. 

6. The importance of knowing the Bible. 

7. What can we do to stimulate Bible study by teachers ? 

8. Why is the Bible often idolized rather than studied? 

9. The value to the teacher of the study of human 

nature. 
10. The value of a study of the teaching art. 

II. The faithful teacher's rewards. 



CHAPTER VI 

HOW TO PLAN THE WORK 



CHAPTER VI 
HOW TO PLAN THE WORK 

I. Taking Aim 

Many years ago Dr. Buckley gave the following advice 
to students : 

i. Acquire thoroughly. This puts the knowledge in. 

2. Review frequently. This keeps the knowledge in. 

3. Plan your work. This begins well. 

4. Work your plan. This finishes well. 

5. Never think of self. Selfishness spoils all. 

6. Never look back. Waste no time over failures. 

7. Earn, save, give all you can for Jesus. Happiness. 

Several of these valuable rules are right in our line. All 
that we have said and shall say in this book presupposes a 
plan for the teacher's work. The plan not only enables us 

to begin well, but there is no good beginning 
Essential without it, and there is no good ending without 

the right beginning. A fine rifle, a good eye, 
and a well-set target would all go for naught unless the 
marksman should take aim. We take our aim by the aid of 
a plan. The teacher needs this as much as the builder needs 
his blueprints. Without these he would hardly begin the 
building with the roof, but teachers sometimes do just this 
kind of a thing. 

II. The Law of the Grade 

Perhaps this is the first thing to heed in laying out the 
work : the lesson must be adapted to the learner. This is 
only one statement of a principle of grading, which is even 
yet contending with custom, prejudice, sloth, and sundry other 

87 3 



88 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

enemies in the Sunday-school, though it has long been vic- 
torious in all other schools. But the law of the grade is 
God's law, not ours, and it will finally compel the obedience 
The Lesson °^ a ^ w ^° wou ^ do God's work. It is the same 
Must be principle that compels him who would open a 

Adapted to locked box, not merely to get a key, but to get 
the Learner ^ key . that ^ the Qne key of a thousand that 

was made for that lock. If a man should have a library 
with different locks on the bookcases and drawers and closets, 
and should order the keys all alike, "because keys of the 
same size look so much nicer on the ring/' we should think 
that he cared more for a trifle than for getting into his 
closets and cases. This passion for uniformity is sometimes 
strong enough to become an idolatry in the Church, but it 
must be resolutely antagonized by the living teacher. He 
is not working for outward show or for mechanical effects 
of any kind. His aim is teaching, and he must insist upon 
the real requisites for teaching. The very beginning of his 
success is the choice of a subject and a method of treatment 
fitted to his pupil. 

i. Nascent periods. We have learned that the indi- 
vidual varies surprisingly as he passes from one stage of 
growth to another. At least two cardinal principles compel 
us to order our work in grades : God has graded 
Fitting the truthj a nd He hag g ra( i e( i the child. Nothing 

the Age ' ls ^ e ^ * or Us to ^° ^ ut to ^ n( ^ an< ^ ^ ^he r i§ nt 

truth to the right age. This right age is called 
the nascent period for that truth. Great principles and proc- 
esses can not be taught just as well at one time of life as 
at another, but there is a right time for each. If this is 
improved, all goes well; but if the nascent period is passed 
by, the soul will be at a disadvantage as to that knowledge 
permanently. These periods of special aptitudes are never 
out of the live teacher's sight. By regarding them he is 
able to do with comparative ease things that vex and baffle 
the heedless teacher. Pattee says : "There is one period, for 

3 



HOW TO PLAN THE WORK 89 

instance, when play must be a dominating element in all 
studies, another when memory is strongest, another when 
biography is best taught, and still another when chivalric 
ideals and the great altruistic principles of Christianity ap- 
peal with almost resistless force. Secular education has recog- 
nized this fact and has arranged with care the sequence and 
the grouping of studies in its curriculum." 

2. Middle adolescence has its aptitudes. There is no 
period more strongly marked than that of our present study. 
There is not one that needs more careful study to know 

and more patience to handle. There are not 
Our Period only new and startling manifestations of the em o- 
cial Demands tional an d the volitional life , but also of the 

i ntell ect. It is easier to teach the wrong things 
and in the wrong way now than at any other period. Bad 
(teaching commonly means the loss of the youth from the 
Q:lass and the school. The effect of this teaching failure is 
seen in the alarming defection of our young people from the 
Church. In the awakened attention of teachers to the needs 
of the young lies the best hope the Church has for the future. 

3. Some traits of middle adolescence. 

(a) There is a new self -consciousness in this period . The 
youth is more h ighly individualiz ed, and he recognizes this. 
He knows that his soul is enlarging more rapidly than ever 

before, and it brings to him new visions , new 
Its Special s ensations, n ew exhilaratio ns. He sometimes ap- 
teristics pears a stranger to himself, and can stand off 

and make observations of this strange new crea- 
ture that stands in his place and carries his memories. But 
he never repels the new elements of manhood. He welcomes 
them with all his heart. He puts them on like a garment, 
and they are soon an unnoticed portion of his enlarging per- 
sonality. 

(b) There is a new independence A man is not made 
perfect in leading-strings : he is brought on by being cut 
loose from these. The young man's freedom makes a deep 

3 



90 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

inipre^onupon Jiimself — probably an exaggerat_e d one, for 
m ost things tend to extremes Jn this period^ The adolescent 
is starting out to e stablish _a_ new centep /vand he-lncates it 
within himself. He wishes to decide all t hings, and when 
he has decided he is utterl y impatient of control. There is 
no time when the e vils of self-will are more Jjerilous than 
now, for the youth Lajcks the res traints of authority on the 
one hand and o f experience on the oth er. • 

(c) The senje_of_J reedom gives rise toKskepticism^) v^Why 
should one believe anything that he has not investigated him- 
self ?3 Why should a man be told what to believe?) Suppose 

£ things have been believed a long time : doej_the__^assing of 
\ yea rs make false things tr ue? Suppose many wise and good 
men have accepted these things : they are welcome to them !" 
Criticism goes with doub ^ The youth is not to_iilame for 
this. E very brain-cell in him cries out for iSquj ri^ and 
gjorjmg ^nd^^tmg> He knows that whatsoever makes mani- 
fest is light, ancl so he t urns on the fiercest kind of light s_ 
at__any a nd all tim es. There is something admirable about 
this disposition-^ts devotion to ..th^ _trutKT^> There is some- 
times danger that the later years may dim the luster of 
perfect loyalty to the truth under pressure of other in- 
terests. 

(d) It is tM_ age of 'y expr ession^ The youtliJias_accLuired 
quitejj j stock of words andJde as. and he is_ beginning to b e 
both broad and fluen t. He is ge neralizing now , and he 
makes use of the concepts and pnmupks_that he has formed. 
This reacts upon him and stimulates him still farther, until 
he is eager _ for broad views of things and d elights in far- 
reaching gen eralizatio ns^, HeTIkes to burrow along iinder- 
neath the surface and trace jeffects to their causes and fore- 
cast coming~~erTects also^ 

(e) He is especiaU^.active .Jn^is-^spiniuaLJtfe. Though 
this may not be superficially evident, it is certain. The heart 
of the youth is tender and as quick as the apple of an eye ) 
His conscience is awake and speaks loud. His sense of de- 



HOW TO PLAN THE WORK 91 

pendence is _, often painfully ^acutej His prayers are more 
frequent and more plaintive than any one knows. 

III. Suitable Subjects for Study 

A question may be raised here as to the right of the 
teacher to choose the work for his class. But it is clear 
that it is both his right and his duty to accept only those 
The Teacher mat erials and methods that he knows are right 
Should Pro- for his purpose. No idol of uniformity ought 
vide Proper to be set up in the holy temple of truth, which 
Lesson every Sunday-school ought to be. There is no 

Material . . ... 

special virtue in "falling in line," though this 
may help the looks of things somewhat. There is no danger 
that the wise teacher will needlessly introduce variations into 
a school, but there is danger that an earnest worker may 
be forced to struggle with lessons that he knows are not the 
best. In such cases he should insist upon the substitution 
of the best lessons. There is no reason why any single class 
in a school should not use, for instance, the Graded Lessons, 
if the other classes prefer the Uniform. The great thing 
to remember is that the Sunday-school does not exist to 
maintain anybody's lessons, and that the souls of the pupils 
are that to which all things should be subordinated. At any 
rate, in the council, or whatever the meetings or* officers 
and teachers may be called, the teachers form the majority 
and can usually procure the adoption of the right things. 
There is a wide and rich variety of subject-matter in the 
Scriptures suited to all the grades and all the years. It is 
easy to see that the adolescent has passed beyond the period 
of fables and stories and catechisms. It is also unprofitable 
to ask him to interest himself in detached and fragmentary 
Scriptures. He will take most kindly to subjects that may 
be studied in their entirety, and he will naturally take an 
interest in what he can analyze and classify. Any of the 
single books of the Bible can be taken up in this way. No 
time need be set for finishing it, but the teacher and the 



92 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

class may work their easy way along until they have to- 
gether accomplished a satisfactory result. Questions of the 
origin of these books and the circumstances under which they 
were written, also of the manifest aim of the writer, are 
appropriate and interesting. 

It is just such work as this that engrosses these same 
young people in their high schools and colleges. They are 
familiar with such inquiries and methods in other literatures, 
and consequently they value them in Bible study. These 
books may be taken up as they stand in our Bible, or, better, 
they may be taken up in logical or chronological order. 
They may be grouped together as they naturally belong, and 
such groups as the Pentateuch, the prophets, the wisdom lit- 
erature, the Gospels, or the Epistles may be studied sepa- 
rately as possessing common and attractive qualities. The 
histories of the Bible may be taken up in a connected way: 
the history of Israel and that of each of its periods ; the 
history of the patriarchs, of the prophets, of the priests, of 
the ministry of Jesus, and of the Early Church are examples. 
There will be abundant opportunity here to correlate and 
compare events in other nations that bear upon the career 
of Israel. Many of our youth are busy with these studies 
in their other work, and delight to draw upon them for the 
elucidation of this. Then, there is the rare company of 
Bible personages whose biographies teem with the most fas- 
cinating and fruitful lessons. Of course our young people 
have had these before, in an elementary way. But they can 
now take up these characters with a deeper insight into their 
motives and achievements. They will wish to analyze their 
characters and estimate the measure of the influences that 
fell upon them from all sides. Their historic value also will 
be sought in what they succeeded in accomplishing in per- 
manent influence upon Israel and the world. 

Growing out of this will naturally come the study of 
personal duties and obligations. They are always best taught 
from living persons, and there are none to be found in any 



HOW TO PLAN THE WORK 93 

literature like those of the Bible. The piety of Abraham, 
the recklessness of Esau, the craftiness of Jacob, the gen- 
erosity of Joseph, the majesty of Moses, the kingcraft of 
David are Old Testament illustrations of ethical value that 
can never be touched without the highest degree of profit. 
And the personal qualities of the men and women of the 
New Testament are of matchless teaching power. Let it 
never be forgotten in the preparation of work for adolescents 
that piety and the moralities should be amply provided for. 
It is a mistake to suppose that the youth will be averse 
to these. If they are wisely handled they will be taken by 
him with keener appetite than any other lessons. 

IV. Methods of Class Work 

These also must accord with the age that we are dealing 
with. They will regard the independence and the sensitive- 
ness to control that we have noted, and will show consider- 
able relaxation from earlier strictness. There 
special -will be less distinction between teacher and pupils. 

Demanded ^he teacher w ^l identify himself as much as 
possible with his pupils, and they will be students 
together. What is necessary in the way of guidance will 
be unobtrusive, and if there is a strong tendency to wander, 
under pressure of an adolescent impulse, the teacher will 
very likely wander, too, for a while. Anything like co- 
ercion or dictation he will sedulously avoid, trusting mainly 
to suggestion and information to guide his pupils aright. 
The preaching method will be out of the question, and the 
lecture method used only in exceptional instances. Though 
he may vary his program from time to time, he will usually 
follow the conversational style, and place great dependence 
upon questions and illustrations. It will be quite practicable 
to get home work done by exciting an interest in the work in 
hand. Such work should be assigned as a voluntary task, 
and it should be carefully aided by hints as to sources and 
selections. 



94 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

When these are presented to the class they should receive 
good attention, with class discussion and a meed of praise. 
The adolescent is a great admirer of intelligence and is 
keen to recognize it in his teacher. The leader will make 
the follower. Some of the teacher's best work will be the 
preparation of work for the pupils, individually considered, 
according to their abilities and circumstances. A little in- 
genuity here, mixed with the ever-necessary sympathy, will 
go a long way toward waking up the pupil's mind and 
causing him to like his work. The devices that may thus 
be employed are so various and so particular in their appli- 
cation that it would be impracticable to attempt to detail 
any here. As a general thing the teacher may be confident 
that they will be suggested to him by the necessities of 
the time. And the teacher who would succeed with a method 
is generally the one who has an eye to discover it. The 
range is wide, and the restrictions only such as grow out 
of due concessions to the impulsiveness, the independence, 
and the frank criticisms of the adolescent. 

V. The Lesson Plan 

It may be said briefly concerning the lesson that this 
should have its special arrangement for every class exercise. 

The rnajrMrnp pf tparVnncr apprnpriqfp_Jr|_Jjih^H_aRg should 

An bejfir st determined; j ftten the subord inate^Je^hr 

Appropriate ings and applications. If the lesson is a specified 
Plan for passageTbf Scripture, it should be analyzed care - 

Every Lesson ful j y f or presentation to the class. Suitable illus- 
trations should be sought and selected with special reference 
to their moral and spiritual effects. Th e point of contact 
and the approach_should be regarded, as in the earlier grades. 
Discussion is almost sure to _jrisejTi_jiiy_da ss of interest ed 
youth, and therefore this is to be welcomed. The best way 
to control it and keep it within agreeable bounds is for the 
teacher to selext-Oiig_^r_mx)jje-^Qpics for discussion in advance, 
and have them ready at the .proper time/) 



HOW TO PLAN THE WORK 95 

VI. The Giver's Blessing 

There is no better illustration than the teacher of the 

greater blessing that comes to the giver than to the receiver. 

The faithful preparatory work that the teacher does will 

bring him more unadulterated satisfaction than 

The Faithful a jj ^ e i earne( j the best day he ever enjoyed as 

Gain a P U P^- ^ * s true tnat ^ e work required of 

him is hard, but it brings its own abundant re- 
ward. A young man in Philadelphia was persuaded to take 
a class with the promise that he should be released if he 
found, after faithful effort, that he was not succeeding. He 
agreed to begin on every lesson as soon as he had taught 
the preceding. This is the experience he had : "When I 
looked over the next lesson on Sunday afternoon, I saw to 
my chagrin that there was nothing in it. My Monday's 
study was little better, and I was glum enough. On Tuesday 
I usually saw some little thing that I could use in it. On 
Wednesday I got interested in it. On Thursday I found 
all I wanted in it. On Friday I got that lesson. On Satur- 
day it got me, and on Sunday I had to teach it or die!" 
Every teacher knows something of this joy that is his alone: 
the exultation of wielding victoriously the Sword of the 
Spirit, with the inward sense that he has the approbation of 
the Master. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. Taking Aim. 
II. The Law of the Grade. 

III. Suitable Subjects for Study. 

IV. Methods of Class Work. 
V. The Lesson Plan. 

VI. The Giver's Blessing. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. Intellectual traits of middle adolescence. 

2, Religious significance of middle adolescence. 



96 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

i. The general value of a plan of teaching. 

2. What is the law of the grade? 

3. What are nascent periods? 

4. What two grand principles underlie grading? 

5. What are the aptitudes of middle adolescence? 

6. The traits of middle youth. 

7. The courses of study — what and by whom fixed: 

8. How control young people in the class? 

9. Personal experiences in class methods. 

10. What about class discussion? 

11. The teacher's personal gains from his lesson prepa- 

ration. 



CHAPTER VII 

HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 



CHAPTER VII 
HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 

I. Knowing the Lesson 

i. Importance. Much has been said about the value of 
knowledge to the teacher, but it is scarcely possible to over- 
estimate it. As a general thing the teacher who does not 

know the work and know it thoroughly will 
No Possible fail) and fail at the start He must k now j t m 

study tw0 wa y s : what it means, and how to teach it. 

With all that sympathy and good-will may do 
for him, and with all the aids of the best facilities and 
methods, there is no escape from the simple, old-fashionecj 
necessity of study. The first virtue of the teacher is knowl- 
edge, and he has to get his knowledge by hard and patient, 
work. So much depends upon analysis that we must take 
a lesson for its study. 

2. Knowledge is deep. This does not mean difficult 
exactly, but it does involve patience. He who skims the 
surface does not know. He who works a while and gets a 

fair idea of the subject does not know as the 
fort Required teacner must know. His knowledge must be 

thorough, and he must take time to make it so. 
It is always surprising to find how deep the truth is. One 
may keep on going down and down. The deeper we go 
the more easy it will be for us to win our pupils, for there 
is nothing that catches a young mind as quickly as the light 
of knowledge shining in the teacher's face. Learners are 
usually thirsty enough to know it very quickly if the springs 

99 3 



ioo THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

are running low. Professor Lounsberry, of Yale University, 
said that his experience in the class-room had taught him "the 
infinite capacity of the human mind to withstand the intro- 
duction of knowledge." This suggests another need: the 
teacher must be able to dislodge the native resistance of 
many minds to the truth, to fight it in through prejudice 
and error and sloth. He is like a dentist: for every little 
obstacle he must have just the rightly crooked tool to work 
around it. He must be fully equipped for all emergencies. 
3. The first aim. A master rhetorician has told us that 
the first quality of style is clearness. This is against the 
ideas of some, who might name originality or brilliancy or 

word-painting. But the homely quality of clear- 
Clearness ness ou tranks everything else. The very object 
Essential °^ l an g ua f= e 1S to communicate thought, and thus 

an open channel must first be sought. The win- 
dow that illustrates this is not made of glass gayly colored 
by cunning men, but of the clear glass that lets in the light 
of heaven in its unstained purity. The word "understanding" 
implies this first : a clearing away of the mists of ignorance 
and half-knowledge. There are all stages in this process. 
A teacher may go before his class with but a slight clearing 
away of these mists, or they may be largely or almost wholly 
dissipated. Here is where the element of time comes in. 
Patience can do wonders for a student. While he waits and 
gazes the slowly developing thought-pictures form and clear 
and finally stand forth in enticing beauty. When President 
Garfield was a teacher in Hiram College, a learner asked 
him the secret of the art of arousing and holding the at- 
tention of pupils. His answer was : "See to it that you 
do not feed your pupils on cold victuals. Take the lesson 
into your own mind anew, rethink it, and then serve it 
hot and steaming, and your pupils will have an appetite for 
your instruction and you will have their attention." Accord- 
ing to this master, it is necessary to maintain the studious 
habit in order to keep the pictures clear. 



HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 101 

II. A Bit of Psychology 

i. The formation of concepts. Our minds are given 
to make thoughts for us. Thought has been denned as "the 
power of the soul to form and rationally apply general con- 
ceptions." Now, this forming of a "general con- 
The First ception," or idea, or notion, is the simplest act 
Thinking °^ thinking. For example, "book" is such a con- 

cept. When we say "book" v/e do not think of 
any particular book, such as a small book, a thick book, a 
red book, or a spelling book; but we do raise in our mind 
something that carries all the essentials of a book with it. 
It is not a particular book, but a general book, and it 
makes no difference that it has no real existence. We call 
it the general concept of a book, and such concepts as these 
are the things that continually fill our minds. 

This formation of concepts, familiar as it is, is by no 
means a simple process. There are at least six elements 
in it: (i) comparison, (2) discrimination, (3) analysis, (4) 
abstraction, (5) synthesis, and (6) generalization. If we may 
borrow "analysis" we may perhaps make this process plain. 
Take our book again. When a certain book is presented to 
us, we see it; that is, we form an image of it which is 
called a sense-concept. Then comes another book, and many 
more, each forming its sense-concept. Somewhere along here 
the mind compares these and sees wherein they are alike 
and wherein they are different. It then analyzes the images, 
noting their common elements, and abstracts each : that is, 
thinks it apart from the rest of the elements, and notices 
it as a separate thing. Then it goes back and gathers up 
the elements that are common to all books by synthesis, and 
thinks this as the general concept, "book," by what we call 
generalization. It is no wonder that we have to go to psy- 
chology to learn what v/e are doing all the time and have 
become so expert in doing. We do this kind of work so 
much that v/e do it unconsciously. 

2. How to clear up our thought. The answer can 

3 



102 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

be readily given now. The secret of clearness is analysis, 
taking a thing apart so that we can study and understand it 
in its simples. This process of analysis is one of the elemen- 
tary acts of the mind, and has not to be learned, 
of Analysis What we have to do is to apply it to the subject 
that we are studying. For just as one book may 
be analyzed, so may all things that are complex be separated 
into their component parts : as a lesson, a sermon, a poem, a 
picture, a parable, a chapter of the Bible, or a book of the 
Bible. Indeed, it would be hard to find anything that is not 
complex enough to be analyzed. 

When a passage of Scripture, therefore, is presented to us 
for our study, we must analyze it, if we wish to understand 
it; that is, if we would have it clear before our minds; also, 
if we would find out the best way to teach it. These lessons 
vary greatly. Some are easy to analyze, and some are hard. 
Some are a unit, and others give us what are really two or 
even three or four separate topics. Some have one strongly 
marked head, with several sub-heads. Others may have a 
number of heads of equal rank, with sub-heads under each. 
It is the work of the analyst not by any means to make divi- 
sions, but to find them. Any artificial taint ruins such an out- 
line, for it should do nothing but mirror the form rigidly. 
It is well to beware of personal peculiarities in this kind of 
work. There is danger of projecting into it the imperfec- 
tions of our own minds, for they tend to work in the same 
way, while the varieties of lessons are many. There was 
once a Sunday-school paper that regularly divided the lesson, 
week by week, into three chief parts, and these into three 
each, and these again into three others. It is easy to see that 
no series of lessons could run that way. Professor Phelps 
tells us that it was an ancient conceit of the pulpit to assign 
to divisions some one of the "sacred" numbers — five, seven, 
twelve, or even forty! The most common of these artificial 
divisions was that in honor of the Trinity. The mediaeval 
mind saw trinity in everything, from the Mosaic record of 

3 



HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 103 

creation down to a three-leaved clover. The paper referred 
to above showed this tendency. One of the developments of 
this forced reverence was the trinitarian division of sermons. 
No matter what the subject or its mode of treatment, the 
sermon must be cropped or stretched in Procrustean fashion 
to just three parts; no more, no less. There is an old 
sermon of this kind approved by an association of clergymen 
for consisting of three general divisions, each of which had 
three subdivisions, each of these developed with three lead- 
ing thoughts, all followed by three inferences in the conclu- 
sion, and ending with the trinitarian doxology. The preacher 
should have delivered it the third Sunday of the third month, 
on a triangular platform, and in a three-cornered hat. 

All this is ridiculous — and worse. To have clear thoughts 
we must lug nothing into the complexity of the lesson, but 
simply disentangle the threads that we find. If this is hard, 
remember that practice will increase skill rapidly. Some 
minds are apt in analysis. An analytical mind is one of 
God's best gifts. But let no one neglect this gift which 
every mind possesses in some measure. It is one of the most 
fruitful and satisfying modes of mental exercise. 

We have before noted the correspondence between the 
truth without and the mind within. God has made each for 
the other. The mind takes up easiest the simple things, and 
God has made the truth divisible into elements. 
the Mind Order comes in here, also. Heaven's "first law" 

is the mind's first law, as it is also the first con- 
dition of morals, and almost everything else that is good. 
The beauty of order appeals to the studious mind, and re- 
acts upon it in pleasing stimulus. Then the order of beauty 
dawns upon the freshening thought, and we begin to per- 
ceive that order makes beauty, and both wait upon the truth. 



io 4 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

III. To Analyze a Lesson 

i. Study the structure. It has a structure. It is not a 
mass or a mess. It is made up in a certain way for a certain 
purpose. We get no story from a dictionary — and yet there 
is order there. Think how useless a dictionary would be 
without arrangement. Think of all the words of a parable 

thrown helter-skelter on the printed page. Some 
HasT Plan °° ^ ave seeme d to disparage elaborate structure, but 

none has ventured to preach or write without it. 
Robert Hall was theoretically opposed to divisions, but he 
almost always used them. It is said that only two or three 
of his published sermons appeared without them. The an- 
cient orators used them carefully in the work of composi- 
tion, though they concealed them in public delivery, being 
afraid of being accused of deceiving the people, if they were 
not taken to be spontaneous in their harangues. The gravity 
of even a slight lapse of the structure is seen in the old story 
of a preacher who was so absorbed in infant baptism that he 
had to preach about it, no matter what the text was. A 
friend of his accepted a wager from a man that he could 
not preach a sermon from any text without getting onto the 
darling theme, and the preacher agreed to try it. The text 
selected was, "And the Lord said unto Adam, Where art 
thou?" The preacher started in bravely, with this division: 
"Firstly, Adam was n't there. Secondly, Adam was some- 
where. Thirdly, Adam was n't where he ought to be. 
Fourthly, God wanted him to get into the right place. 
Fifthly, Infant baptism !" Many a Sunday-school class has 
suffered from this ailment. 

Our Scriptures are full of well-ordered passages. Some 
of them, like the Psalms, are of the rarest literary beauty. 
We are always rewarded by our study of Biblical rhetoric. 
Bad composition shows more plainly nowhere than in its 
disorder. Good composition makes you think of a geomet- 
rical figure. Pascal speaks of "the geometrical spirit/' con- 



HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 105 

tending that profound thinking tends to geometrize. That is, 
it comes from a mind that proceeds by defining, stating, 
proving, to the positive affirmation in the end. Plato's well- 
known saying of the Infinite Mind is like this : "He con- 
stantly geometrizes." In this kind of composition we shall 
find the subjects in a logical and intelligible sequence. The 
ideas will be carefully articulated, so that one proceeds from 
another, and all form a proper progress. 

2. Mark the transitions. When one topic has been fin- 
ished another comes in. Some are of major importance, and 
others of minor. Some intervals are short, and others are 
long. Tokens of this are the comma, the semi-colon, the 

.colon, the period, the paragraph, the section, the chapter, and 
sometimes the part. Find these natural divisions of the sub- 
ject, regarding the paragraphs and sections. This in analysis 
proper. 

3. Select the salient items. This is for teaching, and 
what items are salient may be set in order. But age, and 
circumstances, and many other conditions may determine 
this selection. They should be reduced to their lowest terms, 
in a verbal statement, for brevity and force. We often find 
persons, places, precepts, principles, and events prominent in 
a lesson, but the selection of teaching points should be made 
strictly according to the task which is to be performed. 

4. Frame a logical unity. Every good lesson is one 
thing. Its heads are in harmony with each other, and they 
run in a line of definite progress. The movement is toward 
the most important thing which appears in the climax. 
There is no piling up, and there are no gaps. Like things 
are grouped together, and smaller groups run into larger. 
Take Professor Phelps's description of a Gothic window: 
It is made of wood, and glass, and lead, and oak, and paint. 
Some of its panes are red, and some are circular, and some 
are blue, and some are larger than others, and some are 
square, and some are green. Some are diamond-shaped, 
some are opaque, some are crescent, some are concave, some 

8 



106 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

are ground, some are painted, some are yellow, some are 
cracked, some are transparent, some are patched, and some 
are missing. It was modeled by Michael Angelo. It is a 
memorial window, and a venerable relic of Italian art. It is 
in the Church of Santa Maria, in Florence, with a picture of 
a dove in the center, which has lost one wing. 

He gives this as a horrible example, asking, "Is it a good 
description of a Gothic window?" We sadly admit that it is 
a fair picture of a good deal of Sunday-school teaching. A 
thorough-going study and practice of analysis is the only 
thing that will cure a disease of this kind. Symmetry is as 
much demanded in a lesson plan as in the hull of a yacht, or 
the wings of a bird. Simplicity is always to be aimed at, the 
maxim being to make the analysis as simple as the subject 
matter will allow. There should be no whittling away of any 
of the elements of strength. The literary force that makes 
an impression should always be kept in mind. 

Finally — truth. That which is must be made to appear, 
and just as it is. Neither sentiment nor fear should ever be 
allowed to twist reality. 

Ian Maclaren said of the plunging of Posty into the wa- 
ter to rescue little Elsie, that he saw this coming long before 
he got to it in the story, and shrank from hurling Posty into 
the torrent, and strove against it. But he could not help 
himself; he had no power to prevent it. Charles Dickens 
said that when he was issuing the chapters of "The Old 
Curiosity Shop" as a serial story, he received letters from 
friends and strangers on both side of the Atlantic, begging 
him not to allow Little Nell to die. But those very letters 
showed him that it was the natural thing for the story to 
become a tragedy, and therefore it was the necessary thing. 
The forebodings of his readers were instinctive and authori- 
tative. They saw that Little Nell must die, and their fear 
cried out against it. 

As we regard truth and naturalness in our teaching-plan, 
we shall probably find both force and beauty. 

3 



HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 107 

5. Arrange the subordinate details. These must also 
be taken care of. They need not all be used; indeed, we can 
generally use but a few of them. All the superfluous should 
be freely omitted. But the principle of order for which we 
have stood thus far should rule all things, great and small, 
to the end. 

IV. Advantages of Analysis 

1. The senior grade is composed of scholars who are 
just of the age to take naturally to this logical division and 
study of subjects. It suits their bent. They are fond of tear- 
ing things open, and passing judgment upon everything for 
themselves. No other grade can compare with this in its 
analytical and critical tendencies. 

2. The study of wholes is increasingly advocated for all 
grades, and it is to be hoped that the day of fragments and 
mutilations in Bible study is nearly done. But the older 
pupils demand the unities, and for this study of things as 
wholes an outline is indispensable. The best thing for a 
stranger in a strange city to do is to get upon some elevation 
and note the landmarks. Wherever he may subsequently be 
in that city, he will profit by his first panoramic view. If 
the visitor to Paris ascends the Arch of Triumph, he can dis- 
tinguish the Eiffel Tower, the Trocadero, the Hotel des In- 
valides, the Pantheon, the Louvre, the Madeleine, and Mont- 
martre. Thereafter the city is pictured as a whole in his 
mind. Imagine how the battlefield of Waterloo looks from 
the top of the mound of the Belgian Lion. There is a sim- 
ilar advantage in climbing upon the height of a subject, and 
gathering its few outstanding features into a single view. 
For instance, the Book of the Acts has been summed up into 
A, the Jewish Church; B, the Transitional Church, and C, 
the Gentile Church. Dr. Whedon analyzes Paul's immortal 
argument in the Epistle to the Romans as A, the Ruin; B, 
the Remedy, and C, the Defense. Burton & Mathews treat 
the life of Christ in nine parts, which gives us a general im- 

3 



^o8 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

pression that no amount of study of the details could ever 
furnish. 

3. Dignity and scope. Most lessons appear larger, and 
more important, when they are ordered under their leading 
concepts. This not only shows what these are, but it often 
reveals the importance that arises out of their relation to 
cognate themes. Take a simple outline of the Lord's Prayer, 
for instance: 

1. "Our Father who art in heaven." This teaches 

Fatherhood, which is the foundation of the gospel. 

2. "Hallowed by Thy name." Here is reverence, the 

foundation of religion. 

3. "Thy kingdom come." The Kingdom, which is the 

foundation of civilization in its broadest sense. 

4. "Thy will be done." Consecration, the foundation 

of holiness. 

5. "Give us this day our daily bread." Providence, 

the foundation of temporal blessings. 

6. "Forgive us our debts." Pardon, the foundation 

of spiritual blessings. 

7. "Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from 

the evil one." Guidance, the foundation of per- 
sonal prosperity. 

4. Illumination and emphasis. The separation of the 
groups of like things, and the placing of them over against 
each other, is a first aid to the intelligence. Many a subject 
is seen clearly for the first time in an outline. It always 
helps to clearness. Supppose we say of the nineteenth Psalm, 
for instance, that its topic is The Song of the Two Revela- 
tions, and that it contains three parts: (a) God Revealed in 
Nature, (b) God Revealed in the Scriptures, and (c) A Three- 
fold Prayer; does it not place the writer's aim in a clear 
light? The emphasis upon proper subjects always does this 
when it enables them to be isolated for particular notice and 
study. 

5. Skill and confidence. We are not attempting to ex- 

3 



HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 109 

haust the benefits of analysis, but must mention these, which 
apply especially to the teacher. If he sees the end from the 
beginning, if he knows just what the next step is always to 
be, and if he knows just what he is going to do in any emer- 
gency, he is master of the situation. He knows it, and has 
confidence in himself ; and his pupils discover it, and are glad. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. Knowing the Lesson. 

II. A Bit of Psychology. 

III. To Analyze a Lesson. 

IV. Advantages of Analysis. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. The formation of concepts. 

2. The cultivation of the logical faculty. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. Ways in which the teacher must know the lesson. 

2. What is the first quality of style? 

3. What is thought? 

4. What are general concepts? 

5. The importance of analysis. 

6. Name five steps in the analysis of a lesson. 

7. Can you teach without a plan? 

8. What are the advantages of outlining? 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS 

I. The Interrogation Point 

Alexander Pope was a little, misshapen man, and he was 
inordinately given to quizzing. A young officer, who had 
endured much from him, was one day asked by him what an 
interrogation point is. He saw his chance, and replied, "A 
little crooked thing that asks questions. ,, But this little ask- 
ing-point, like many another humble entity, is far greater 
than it looks. Few things stand for more in education than 
just this. Bacon's "A shrewd question is the half of knowl- 
edge," is an old maxim, the only question about which is 
whether it is not two-thirds or even more. There is no 
teaching, in the ordinary course of things, without questions, 
and there is nothing that more truly measures the value of 
teaching than the questions that the teacher asks. It is safe 
to say that no teacher regrets the expenditure of what time 
he has put upon the study of questions and questioning. He 
would almost certainly testify that nothing has brought him 
more from the investment than this. The teacher of seniors 
is especially interested in this, for adolescents are natural 
questioners themselves, and they can not be taught without 
questioning. The more nearly a fine art that the teacher 
makes of this, the surer he is to win and to hold his class. 

The question is the historic weapon which all the mas- 
ters of pedagogy have used victoriously. It is like Arthur's 
f Excalibur, or the mighty brand of the Lion- 
Weapon Heart; even more like Saladm's scimitar and 
the light and flexible rapier that more than 
make up in keenness and facility what they lack in weight. 
Pestalozzi, Herbart, Spencer, Comenius, Bain, and Agassiz 

8 113 3 



ii4 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

are names that suggest themselves at once among those of 
the master-questioners and expounders of the theory of teach- 
ing that involves these. At the head of all secular teachers, 
perhaps, stands the Sage of Athens, who was the most skillful 
and penetrating questioner that ever taught. It might almost 
be said that Socrates did nothing but question. He relied 
wholly upon the magic of the question to develop, and to draw 
out what he supposed was nascent in the pupil's mind. He 
also used a good deal of irony, because he had to deal with 
the Athenians, who were rilled with conceit for their imag- 
ined knowledge. But this is not an essential part of his 
marvelous art. We can, perhaps, learn nothing better about 
asking questions than to study a sample of the Socratic 
method given by Professor John Adams: 

Suppose Socrates could rise out of his twenty-three-hun- 
dred-year-old grave (and could speak English) ; he might 
The Socratic come along to the playground, and finding John 
Method Thompson, the pupil-teacher, standing there do- 

Illustrated j n g no thing in particular, might enter into con- 
versation with him. By and by he might ask quite casually: 

"By the way, Thompson, what is an insect? I often hear 
people talking about insects, and I'd like to be quite sure 
what they mean." 

Then Thompson would feel very big at being asked in that 
way by such an old man, and would answer in an offhand 
style: "O, an insect? Why, I thought everybody knew that. 
An insect 's — let me see — yes, an insect 's a little animal with 
wings." 

Then Socrates might look beyond the school railings at a 
hen pecking among the stones in the road, and say: "Well, 
well, now. So that 's an insect. D' ye know, I would n't have 
thought that, now." 

And Thompson would be angry, and think that Socrates 
was not just such a nice old man as he had supposed, and 
would go on to explain that a hen was far too big for an 
insect. 

3 



THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS 115 

Socrates, on the other hand, would be quite nice about it, 
and say: "So an insect is a very small animal with wings?" 

Thompson (relieved) : "Yes." 

Socrates: "Is a humming bird small enough?" 

Thompson (shortly) : "No: an insect isn't a bird at all." 

Socrates: "Then an insect is a very small animal with 
wings that isn't a bird?" 

Thompson (again relieved) : "Yes." 

Socrates: "In a shop, yesterday, I saw a little package 
marked 'Keating's Powder/ which was said to kill all insects. 
There were some pictures of very small animals that were n't 
birds, but they had n't wings, so I suppose it was a mistake 
putting them there, for they could n't be insects without wings, 
could they?" 

(Thompson is now sure that Socrates is a very disagree- 
able old man, and wonders that he has not noticed before 
what an ugly pug nose the old man has.) 

Thompson (bitterly) : "Yes, they 're insects right enough. 
Everybody knows them. You do n't mean to say you do n't 
know them?" 

(But Socrates never answers side questions like this last. 
He always keeps to the main point.) 

Socrates: "Dear me! Dear me! What are we to say 
now? An insect is a very small animal with wings, that 
is n't a bird, and sometimes has n't wings. Really, I do n't 
think I quite know yet what an insect is." 

Thompson (with a happy inspiration, and the memory of 
a reading lesson) : "O, an insect is an animal that begins as 
a grub, goes on to be a chrysalis, and ends by being a perfect 
butterfly." 

Socrates: "How interesting! Now, how long would you 
say Keating's insects — the ones without wings, you know — 
would take to become perfect butterflies ?" 

Thompson: "O, bother! You do nothing but find fault. 
Tell me what an insect is — you." 

Socrates: "But you forget, my dear Thompson, that 



n6 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

do n't know. I 'm only asking for information. Let 's examine 
three or four animals that we know to be insects, and see 
wherein they resemble each other. Which animals shall we 
take?" 

Thompson: "O, fet 's take the butterfly, the bee, the spider, 
and — and, say, the beetle?" 

Socrates: "Good; but, by the way, my friend, the pro- 
fessor happened to say the other day that the spider is n't an 
insect, though like you I thought it was, and so do most 
people. Let 's examine it along with those we are sure about, 
and see how it differs from them: that will help us find out 
what an insect really is." 

And so the conversation goes on. They find that the 
spider has eight legs, while all the genuine insects have only 
six; that all the insects are made up of a series of rings; 
that these rings are grouped into three sets ; that all have 
either wings or traces of wings, and so forth. 

No one can study Socrates, and wonder why he was 
great. His piercing questions seemed to stimulate mens 
minds more than did all the eloquence of Demosthenes and 
Aeschines, or the artistic creations of Phidias and Apelles. 
How large a share of the achievements of Plato and Xeno- 
phon is to be credited to this wonderful teacher may be a 
matter of dispute, but all agree that it is large. His insight, 
his keenness, his simplicity, and his astonishing ingenuity 
and mind-mastery remain the standing wonder of the edu- 
cational world. "As long as the name of Socrates survives, 
the world can hardly forget the challenging function, the 
insinuating and awakening force, and the resistless influence 
which are involved in shrewdly put questions." 

II. The Use of Questions 

i. They make history. In the history of nations there is 
many an example of the power of a question, in a crisis, to 
turn the scale. The sharp question forces the issue ; it thrusts 
up a dilemma, and he who dodges nimbly to escape one horn 

s 



THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS 117 

often finds himself impaled on the other before he knows it. 
Great statesmen, like great lawyers, are always masters of 
the question-mark. The speeches of Abraham Lincoln dur- 
ing the fateful period immediately preceding the Civil War 
The Lincoln- abound in searching, incisive questions. In his 
Douglas memorable debate with Douglas the latter made 

Debate an attac k upon Lincoln with a series of seven 

questions upon which he relied to pierce him to his political 
death. But he was dealing with a master. Lincoln evaded 
nothing, but answered all the seven with his characteristic 
frankness and vigor. And he still lived. But then it was his 
turn. His acute mind discerned the antagonistic elements 
in Douglas's political creed, and he selected the question as 
the means of showing these up, and overwhelming his oppo- 
nent. These four questions were simple in their phrasing, 
yet most subtle, and they went to the heart of the whole 
anti-slavery controversy. He showed them to some of his 
friends, who took alarm at once, and begged him not to pre- 
sent them. One question in particular seemed so dangerous 
to them that they came to him in his room at midnight, and 
begged him to withhold it. "If you put it," said one, "you 
can never be senator." "Gentlemen," he answered, as he 
drew his lips together between the words, "I am killing 
larger game; if Douglas answers, he can never be President, 
and the battle of i860 is worth a hundred of this." The next 
day he fearlessly put his questions to Douglas. It is easily 
remembered that his answers, shrewd as they were, made 
possible the re-election of Douglas to the Senate of the United 
States ; but it also aroused the anger of the South against 
him, and in all probability kept him from the Presidency later. 
Moreover, it raised an excitement that spread over the Na- 
tion. Of this Lincoln was the natural center, and the day 
came at last when he went to Washington on his immortal 
mission. 

Does it not look as if our country's career turned upon 
his question? 

3 



n8 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

2. They are powerful in exhortation. All the writers 
on preaching make much of the direct, personal question. 
The great preachers are adepts in the art of questioning. 
They get it from the Scriptures themselves. Note the tre- 
mendous effect of the form of God's address to the guilty- 
pair in Eden: 

"Where art thou?" 

"Who told thee that thou wast naked?" 

"Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee 
that thou shouldest not eat?" 

"What is this that thou hast done?" 

Question-marks abound in the Scriptures, and he who 
studies them can not fail to be influenced by this notable pe- 
culiarity of their address. John Wesley was a 
WTesley as & • 

Questioner remarkable questioner. Says Dr. J. B. Young: 

"No man of his day surpassed him in the ser- 
monic arts whereby attention is gained, the conscience is 
reached, the judgment is arrested, and the soul is brought 
to consider its way, and repent. It is significant, therefore, 
that this master of English speech was fond of this method 
of dividing up a discourse." "One whose calling involves 
public speaking of any sort, and who has thus far failed to 
note the extraordinary impressiveness and searching func- 
tion of well-ordered interrogatives, can find no more striking 
specimens of it than John Wesley's sermons afford." 

3. The method of Jesus. Jesus Christ was the most 
wonderful questioner that ever taught. In the simplicity, the 
depth, the searching quality, and the far-reaching effects of 
His questions, He stands pre-eminent through the ages. Dr. 

Young notes that "the only incident of His boy- 
Questions hood portrays Him in the Temple at Jerusalem 

among the teachers of the Law, 'both hearing 
them and asking them questions.' " This one fact is doubt- 
less typical of His life. "With questions He encouraged the 
timid, instructed the docile, rebuked the stubborn and un- 
discerning, warned the imperiled, silenced the carping and 

3 



THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS 119 

the captious, refuted the contentious, and denounced the 
hypocritical." There is no study that would probably help 
the teacher more than that of the questions of the Great 
Teacher. They will be found more numerous, doubtless, 
than one would think. Take just a few, to show their force 
and reach: 

"Is not the life more than the food, and the body than 
the raiment?' 

"Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" 

"What shall a man be profited if he shall gain the whole 
world and forfeit his life?" 

"What shall a man give in exchange for his life?" 

"Can the blind guide the blind?" 

"Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which 
I say?" 

"Wouldest thou be made whole?" 

"Lovest thou Me?" 

There are no more helpful suggestions anywhere, either 
as to the value of the question-method or as to models for 
efficient questioning, than in the record of the sayings of the 
Master. 

III. The Question Method in Sunday-school Teach- 
ing 

An epoch was made by the introduction of the question- 
method. Dr. Trumbull tells us that this was first introduced 
by James Gall, of Scotland, at the beginning of the last cen- 
tury. At that time the practice of teaching was very poor, 
Gall's Work both there and here. There was a vast deal of 
for the Sun- crude memorizing and rote work, without much 
day-School e ff rt to teach pupils the meaning of what they 
were learning. This was the bane of the Catechism as it was 
taught. Gall introduced the present plan of a "limited les- 
son." This consisted of a few verses of Scripture, which 
were to be made intelligible by simple questioning. "From 
this beginning our entire modern system of Sunday-school 



120 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

teaching, including all our question-books and lesson-helps, 
took its start." Thomas K. Beecher was a famous teacher 
in his day, and his skill was that of a questioner, according 
to Gall's method. Dr. Trumbull used his "word-questions" 
to illustrate the enthusiasm engendered by this simplest form 
of the question art : "Will, say the first sentence of the les- 
son !" "Behold, a sower went forth to sow." "A what?" 
(pointing to a pupil, as a quicker way, and withal more mag- 
netic, than stopping to call a name.) "A sower." "What 
did he do?" "He went forth." "What for?" "To sow." 
And of this method, simple and even frivolous as some 
teachers might consider it, Mr. Beecher says : "As the result 
of years of experience, I find that even in our teachers' meet- 
ings this class of questions arrest attention, and amuse, and 
fascinate even grown-up people; for when asked rapidly, and 
with spirit, they require the parties engaged in the exercises 
to keep their wits about them, and to be perfect masters of the 
words of the lesson." 

This honored teacher is but one of many who have helped 
to develop the question method, and to make it prominent in 
the work of the modern Sunday-school. 

4. The question in the new education. Many of the 
old-time teachers seemed to deal with facts and formulas as 
a sort of filling for minds which were regarded as somewhat 
like jugs, to be poured full without any effort on their own 
part. Dickens describes such teachers in Gradgrind and 
M'Choakumchild, who were "a kind of cannon, loaded to the 
muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow the boys and girls 
clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge." They 
The New Ed- know little of any other faculty but memory, and 
ucation Ex- their theory is that this is best stimulated by 
cites Inquiry tough sticks> But al j thig ig out l awe( i. The new 

education regards first the activity of the mind. Mill gives 
as the first principle in education, "The discipline which does 
good to the mind is that in which the mind is active, not 
passive; the secret of developing the faculties is to give them 

3 



THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS 121 

much to do, and much inducement to do it." Tyndall says, 
"The exercise of the mind, like that of the body, depends for 
its value upon the spirit in which it is accomplished." 
Spencer says that the pupil "should be told as little as pos- 
sible, and induced to discover as much as possible." Agas- 
siz said that the worst service a teacher could render a pupil 
was to give him a ready-made answer. The new education 
aims to draw out, to train, to discipline; and it does this by 
awakening curiosity, exciting inquiry, and developing dis- 
crimination. Its axiom is that it is what the student does for 
himself and by himself, under, wise guidance, that educates 
him. 

For this supreme task of awakening and guiding the 
mental powers there is nothing as valuable as the expert 
question. Its place in the new education is large and neces- 
sary. 

IV. Our Use of Questions 

1. Faulty questions. We have not attempted to treat 
the topic of this lesson narrowly or mechanically. It is hoped 
that our somewhat broad treatment has sufficed to afford 
some instruction as to the use of questions by the senior 
teacher. It may be unnecessary to specify faults, but we will 
name a few, for samples. 

First, there is the aimless question, that leads nowhere, 
and affords no clue to the pupil as to what the teacher wishes 
to evoke. Then there is the leading question, which carries 
the answer with it. There is the irrelevant ques- 
to Avoid t* 011 ' wmcn is out °f joint with the thing in mind. 

The misleading question is still worse, for it 
leads the learner away from the right road. There are wordy 
questions that confuse, and stilted questions that confound. 
There are technical questions that baffle, and silly questions 
that insult. There are also questions that are annoying, pro- 
voking, impudent, sarcastic, and malicious. 



122 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

2. Practical directions. From what has preceded we 
may deduce these practical directions in the use of questions : 

Questions may be asked merely for attention, before the 
lesson begins. Such may be of the subject of the lesson, or 
they may not. The "point of contact" is to be first found, 
and it may lie at some distance off the present path. Some 
Important questions may be asked for encouragement, the 
Uses in our teacher knowing well that the pupil can easily 
Teaching answer them. Some review questions may come 
in to pave the way. But the first great use of the question 
will be to develop the lesson; to gather up and present the 
material for working over. The next large use of it will be 
to correlate this material with other already known, that will 
aid in the handling of it. There will also be questions for the 
expansion of the subject, for the correction of errors, for the 
deduction of other truths, and of precepts. A whole depart- 
ment of question work is that of testing the pupil's knowledge, 
and another is that of stimulating the mind to greater ac- 
tivity. 

One important use of the question remains to be noticed, 
and this is of special significance to the religious teacher. 
It is that of inspiration. Let us tell this in a story. One of 
the most devoted and useful men of our day is Dr. Grenfell, 
the apostle of the North. Mr. Norman Duncan thus de- 
scribes his work : "In the little hospital ship, 'Strathcona/ 
the doctor darts here and there and everywhere, all summer 
long, responding to calls, searching out the sick, gathering 
the patients for the various hospitals. The ship is known 
to every harbor on the coast; and she is often overcrowded 
with the sick. Winter travel is a matter of much danger and 
hardship. The mission doctor finds greater delight, if any- 
thing, in the wild, swift race over rotten or heaving ice, or 
in a night in the driving snow, than in running the Strath- 
cona through a northeast gale. The journey northward is 
made in midwinter alone with the dogs. Many a night the 
doctor must get into his sleeping-bag, and make himself as 

3 



THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS 123 

comfortable as possible in the snow, snuggling close to the 
dogs for the sake of the warmth of their bodies. Six hundred 
miles north in the dead of winter, six hundred miles back 
again: it takes a man of unchangeable devotion to under- 
take it!" Where is the source of this extraordinary heroism? 
In a question. Dr. Grenfell once heard a sermon by Mr. 
Moody, and shortly before the latter's death he took occasion 
to thank him for it. The intensely practical Moody answered 
pointedly with this: "And what have you been doing since?" 
Grenfell could neither answer this question nor get away 
from it, and soon he set about to try to do things. "He has 
become the promoter of industry, the physician, missionary, 
magistrate, and helpful friend of every fisherman on the 
Labrador coast." 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The Interrogation Point. 

II. The Use of Questions. 

III. The Question Method in Sunday-school Teaching. 

IV. The Senior Teacher's Use of Questions. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. The Socratic method. 

2. Jesus' use of questions. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. The dynamic of the question. 

2. Socrates' use of questions. 

3. What historic questions do you know about? 

4. How are you affected by the questions of public 

speakers ? 

5. Name as many of the questions of Jesus as you can 

recall. 

6. What is the place of the question in the new edu- 

cation ? 

7. Name certain kinds of faulty questions. 

8. What are the particular uses of questions? 



CHAPTER IX 

ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE 
AND USE 



CHAPTER IX 
ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 

I. The Windows of Speech 

"There can be no doubt that, for the purpose of teaching, 
one illustration is worth a thousand abstractions. They are 
the windows of speech ; through them truth shines ; and ordi- 
Illustrations nary minds fail to perceive truth clearly unless 
Light up it is presented to them through this medium." 

Teaching £ Q wrote Ed w i n Paxton Hood, many years ago, 
and in similar strain a general chorus of wise men praise 
the things that light up teaching. It is a common-place to 
say that every good teacher illustrates, and must illustrate. 
We need not stop in one place to enforce a truth : we may 
reflect light upon it from a thousand other sources. A tomb 
has one door to it, but no windows : the houses we live in 
must have more windows than doors. It is a cheering 
thought that the thing that we would gladly get into the 
minds of our class lies in no isolated beam, but is illumined 
from all sides, if we open up the view. 

II. Popularity of Illustrations 

The amazing popularity of illustrations is a phenomenon 
of the first magnitude. The story reigns from the cradle to 
the grave. Savages and sages alike give attention to them; 
Many in philosophers and fools are not beyond their 

Kind and reach. There are many kinds of illustrations : $ 

umber there are object-lessons, pictures, diagrams, maps, 

statuary, plays, novels, poems, tales, fables, and the myriad 
processes of the world of nature and life. Consider the multi- 
tude of the works of fiction and their enormous circulation. 

127 3 



128 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

Consider the stories and sketches that fill our popular maga- 
zines, and note the copious pictures that adorn everything now- 
adays, from the daily newspaper and the standing billboard to 
the highest treatises on the sciences. Consider the money 
value of a story as such. There are few things, if any, that are 
equal to stories in the market. If you have one, you can 
cash it at the nearest newspaper office. Note the extraordi- 
nary sums paid for, and made by, the novels that "get a 
run;" also, tho~3 paid to returned explorers for "lecturing," 
or to any popular hero for telling the tale of his prowess. 
: One apt illustration may sell a patent or lift a mortgage or 
■ win a sweetheart or a soul. They are found on the street, 
in the corner grocery, the factory, the office, the home, and 
the club. In the school and the church, in lyceums, and in- 
stitutes, and political campaigns they have the front seats. 
And there is no sign, as the race grows old, that they are 
losing any of their charm. 

III. Masters of Illustration 

The great teachers of the race have all been masters of 
this rich art. Robert Hall once criticised the sermon of a 
brother minister thus : "You have no 'likes' in your ser- 
TheirUse mon.' Christ taught that the kingdom of heaven 
by Great was 'like' to leaven, 'like' to a grain of mustard 

Teachers seed, etc. You tell us what things are, but never 
what they are 'like! " He touched here one of the most con- 
. spicuous traits of our Lord as a Teacher. Jesus opened 
wide the windows. He was always telling stories : "without 
a parable spake He not unto them." He garnished His the- 
ological discourse with a thousand lights from the sheep, the 
birds, the flowers, the grain, the storm, the sky, the wedding 
feast, the lost coin, the man outraged by robbers, and the 
wandering son. The prophets and the psalmist were rich in 
imagery. So were the Hebrew poets, and all the poets are. 
The great preachers also have drawn powerfully upon this. 
John Wesley's style was calm, and he was always orderly, 



ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 129 

usually logical to severity. Yet he was a master illustrator. 
A philosopher of Wesley's time declared that he came nearer 
to the ideal of this than any one whose writings he had read. 
He wrote to Hannah More : "When you 'advise, instruct 
to be communicated, in a way that shall interest the feelings 
by lively images ;' and when you observe that 'there seems 
to be no good reason why religion must be dry and uninter- 
esting, while every other thing is to be made amusing;' and 
ask, 'Why should not the most entertaining powers of the 
human mind be supremely consecrated to that subject which 
is most worthy of their full exercise?' I read that of which 
I must say, John Wesley gives me the most entire exemplifi- 
cation I have ever met with, except in the Bible." All the 
evangelists, from Whitefield down, have made illustration the 
bulk of their exhortations. This extraordinary exhorter kept 
the volume of nature ever open before him, and he delighted 
to unfold its magnificent contents. From the rainbow, and 
the ocean, and the thunder-storm, to the glow-worm, and 
the flower, and the fish, nothing was too grand or too insig- 
nificant to serve the needs of his impassioned oratory. White- 
field is said to have "ransacked creation for figures, heaven 
for motives, hell for warnings, and eternity for arguments.'' 
These things furnish appeals for all minds, and no popular 
speaker can afford to dispense with them. 

Dr. Cuyler was an interesting preacher, and he accounted 
for his practice by telling what Judge McLean, of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, once said to him: "I was 
glad to hear you give that solemn personal incident in your 
discourse last night. Ministers nowadays are getting above 
telling a story in their sermons, but I like it." The widely- 
circulated sermons of Dr. Talmage were composed almost 
wholly of incidents. Dr. Trumbull's writings abound in 
them, and are powerfully enforced by them. Abraham Lin- 
coln was so convinced of the power of stories that he made 
larger use of them than was agreeable to everybody; for he 
was often criticised for it. But he made it evident that he 

9 3 



i 3 o THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

was far from frivolous in this : it was deliberate and pro- 
foundly philosophical. 

The senior teacher has only to fall into line with the 
masters in this. He will find his pupils eager to listen to 
anything which enlarges their view and introduces them to 
new facts of nature or life, and to the men and the women 
that are moving the world along. 

IV, Utility of Illustrations 

This goes almost without saying, for the masters have in- 
variably held a utilitarian aim : they have discarded every- 
thing but what could help their case. If any- 
ical Help thing has been established in the experience of 

teaching, this has been. And teachers find this 
out in their personal experience before they get very far 
along. 

Dr. Guthrie, when he was a young man, was not content 
with shooting his arrows at his chosen target. When he 
would meet the children of his parish he would talk with 
them, and try to find out what they remembered of his ser- 
mons. He says, "I found that they remembered best the 
parts that had illustrations ; so I resolved never to shoot off 
an arrow without winging it." Any one may make this test for 
himself, and upon himself. This is not a matter of disposi- 
tion or personal peculiarity; it is practically a universal trait. 

V. The Philosophy of Illustration 

There is a kind of philosophy of illustrations. That is, 
there are underlying principles that support them. This 
world is full of resemblances and contrasts. Nothing stands 
What alone. "Nature is one vast parable." It is a 

Makes them diamond cut into myriad facets. Each gleams in 
Necessary j ts p r0 p er turning. The things that are in our 
lives are mirrored in Mother Nature. And the things of na- 
ture are not separate, but all related. We call the whole 



ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 131 

mass of things the "universe," which name certifies to the 
oneness of the worlds. If a thing does not shine fully in its 
own light, we may set up other things by its side. In the 
light of all it becomes clear, because all have something in 
common. 

Then there are the emotions to consider. We do not think 
with our intellect alone. The feelings dwell in the same 
house with them, if not even nearer than this. To stir the 
feelings helps the thought. It is better to have two or six 
horses to harness to a heavy load than to be limited to one; 
in which case the load would usually stay where it is. The 
story brings in the reinforcements: it calls the allies. There/ 
is a strong pull when you can get the whole mind to pull to-* 
gether; and this is really the grand problem of the teacher. 
It is no wonder that Dr. Gregory calls the power to use illus- 
trations well "the chief and central power in the teacher's 
art." 

Life loves life. We are interested in other people because 
they are people — endowed with the same senses, and impulses, 
and potencies as we are, and moving to the same destinies. 
There are stoics, but none are without human sympathy. 
There are cynics, but none escape their kind on every path. 
When you put another life by the side of mine, I am mag- 
netized by it. When you take an experience from my broth- 
er's years, and hold it up in front of one that I am now 
passing through, I can not help looking at it, and listening to 
its prophecy. 

VI. Offices of Illustration 

1. It attracts attention. Dr. Trumbull tells about a 
class of lively boys that he encountered once in a mission 
school, to whom he was to teach the fifty-third chapter of 
Isaiah. But they were a wriggling mass whom it seemed 
hopeless to try to impress with Isaiah. But he thought of 
an illustration — and he won. "Boys ! did any of you ever 
see a sheep-shearing?" he called sharply. Yes, one of them 



y 



132 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

had, though this was a city school. "Boys ! just listen, all 
of you. Billy is going to tell about a sheep-shearing that he 
saw once out in the country/' was the magic phrase that 
did it. "Now, how was it, Billy ?" and Billy rose to the op- 
portunity: "Why, one old fellow just caught hold of the 
sheep and sat down on its head, and another cut his wool 
off." "How much noise did the sheep make?" "Not any: 
he didn't bleat a bit." It was not far from here to an ex- 
planation of the prophecy in the seventh verse that found 
listening ears. 

One can easily see the value of a device like this : An 
old preacher leaned over the pulpit and said: "My friends, 
I am going to ask you a plain question; but it is a question 
that not one of you can answer. In fact, it is a question that 
I can not answer myself. If an angel from heaven should 
come down here right now, and I should ask him this ques- 
tion, he couldn't answer it. It is a question, my friends, 
that not even God Himself could answer." Then came the 
solemn inquiry, "What shall it profit a man if he shall 
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" 

2. It aids interpretation. The understanding needs aid, 
and it needs this more than we are apt to think. One reason 
for this is the poverty that belongs to words, and another is 
the paucity of words in an ordinary person's vocabulary. 
The dictionary contains over four hundred thousand words, 
and all these are but a drop in the bucket. But Muller tells 
us that a well-educated person seldom uses more than three 
or four thousand words in actual conversation. Accurate 
speakers and close thinkers may use more. He is an eloquent 
man who uses ten thousand. Shakespeare stands at the head 
of all who have used language, and yet he built up his won- 
derful plays with about fifteen thousand words. In Milton's 
prose works we find eight thousand words, and the Old Tes- 
tament employs 5,642. Whatever enhances the effects of 
words, or conveys ideas beyond their reach, is of the greatest 
value. 

3 



ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 133 

Then there is the omnipresent danger of misunderstand- 
ing. How much there is of this, even when carefully guarded 
against, is sad to think of. An English bishop preached a 
strong sermon against atheism from the text, "The fool hath 
said in his heart there is no God." Some time afterward he 
asked a poor woman whether she had enjoyed the sermon, 
and she replied : "O ! it was all very fine ; but, my lord, I 
believe there's a God, for all that." All teachers know what 
this is, and most of them will consider it worse to be mis- 
understood than perchance to over-illustrate now and then. 

3. It illumines the understanding. There is much be- 
yond a bare understanding of the meaning of a thing. 
Stories and other forms of illustration have the power to 
raise the primary comprehension to a high degree. The imag- 
ination is brought to the aid of the intellect, and with its 
marvelous play the thought becomes radiant. 

4. It deepens impressions. Illustration enables the 
teacher to make his appeal to the whole soul: the intellect is 
informed, the imagination and the memory are kindled, and 
the emotions are stirred. The amount of emphasis desired 
upon any principle or precept is almost unlimited, with the 
wealth of diverse things to draw upon for new impulses to 
the soul. 

5. It strengthens persuasion. This follows from the 
preceding. When all the faculties but the will are going in 
one rushing stream, the volitions are most likely to come in. 
Foster tells of an English youth who was wild and disso- 
lute, yet brilliant. He was a bar-tender. Nearby there was 
a dissenting chapel, where a story-telling cobbler was hav- 
ing a wide hearing by the power of his illustrations. One 
night he said to his companions, "Come on, let us go down 
and hear old Cole tell his stories." They went, but the young 
bar-tender was enthralled by the stories that he heard. His 
name was George Whitefield, and the beginning of his won- 
derful ministry was made that night. 

Strange as it may seem, the highest power of conviction 



134 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

does not belong to logic. Dr. John McClintock was a pro- 
found theologian, but he told Moncure D. Conway once that 
no theological argument for the resurrection had ever satis- 
fied him like the voice of Jenny Lind singing, "I know that 
my Redeemer liveth." 

It may be hard to explain, but we easily recognize the 
fact of this persuasive power. Why did Jesus tell the story 
of the Prodigal Son? Why did He not utter a series of com- 
mandments and warnings to the wanderers? Even a tyro in 
human nature knows that it is because of the greater power 
of the story. Many a wayward sinner who has resisted 
sermons without number has broken into tears and surren- 
dered upon the mere recital of this divine parable. There 
is a deep lesson for teachers here. 

6. It molds character. Through its peculiar appeal to 
the memory illustration constantly tends to render the results 
of teaching permanent. A story, a leaf from the page of 
another's life that fits our own, will generally stay with us 
when all other elements of the lesson have faded in the dis- 
tance. Sometimes a single bright picture has remained the 
bulwark and the inspiration of a life. 

We can not protract this enumeration, inadequate as it 
is. Dr. W. L. Hervey indorses as true and profound the 
statement of G. Stanley Hall, that "of all the things that a 
teacher should know how to do, the most important, without 
exception, is to be able to tell a story." He tells of a student 
pursuing a university course in education, who had been 
studying the sources and methods of illustration. He said, 
"It gradually dawned upon me that, if I knew how to tell a 
story, I had mastered the main part of the art of teaching." 
Dr. Hervey's analysis of this is: "For to know a good story 
is to have literary and pedagogic taste; to adapt or make a 
good story for children is both to know the secret of the 
mind of a child and to have creative power; to tell a good 
story is to be master of a noble art." 



ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 135 

VII. Sources and Rules 

We are inclined to make these brief. A live teacher's in- 
tuition will do much for him, and his work will usually do 
the rest. Wide and constant reading is necessary, of course. 
Conversations and lectures will always yield something. 
Works of art and the panorama of nature are continual reve- 
lations. The first secret is an eager mind, and the next is 
the habit of reflection. Another is an absorbing interest in 
our pupils. With our eyes fixed upon their 
Secure them nee ds, the things to gratify these will not be al- 
lowed to sweep unnoticed past us. It is doubt- 
less true that the mind that can use a story can be trusted to 
note it, and to capture it when it comes along. Nor is it 
necessary to formulate detailed rules for the use of stories. 
If the one end of the pupil's advantage is kept clearly in the 
view, and all things are regulated accordingly, there is little 
danger of misusing illustrations. The teacher who is con- 
stantly watchful of effects is not likely to misjudge these 
many times. 

VIII. An Illustration of Illustration 

We condense the following from Elizabeth Harrison, in 
the Sunday-School Times: A teacher was asked to take a 
class of young toughs in a mission school who had worn out 
four teachers. The superintendent had threat- 
Illustrator ene( * to e i ect them, and their only answer was de- 
risive laughter. There was a succession of out- 
rageous antics before the time for the lesson. Then one boy 
raised his blacking-box and scraped it across the face of 
another boy. In a moment the usual fight was imminent. 
But the teacher was quicker than the blow. She seized the 
blacking-box and cried out, "I can tell you something about 
this box that you do not know." The boys were astonished, 
and there was silence for a moment. "Bah !" said one, 
"you 're tryin' to guy us now." "Give us a rest," said an- 



136 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

other skeptic, tauntingly. But others cried, "What is it?" 
"Go ahead." The teacher began : "Of what is this box 
made?" "Wood, of course," said two or three of the disap- 
pointed group, the look of contempt returning to their faces. 
"O, yes, of course. But where did the wood come from?" 
said the teacher. She pursued the inquiry until the best 
posted of them had come to the end of his knowledge. Then 
she began and described for them the long, slow growth of 
the forest trees. Then the long years of waiting, until the 
woodman came with his ax; the busy, picturesque life of the 
logging camp ; the dangerous voyage of the logs, tied to- 
gether in a rift, floating down the broad river, and the won- 
derful processes of the lumber mill. The boys were quiet to 
the end, and their deep-drawn sighs were eloquent. The 
teacher continued, "I think that I know something more about 
this box that you do n't know." She took up the story of 
the nails, including the work of the miners, and brought 
in many other things that boys like to know. Gradually 
the ringleader of the boys projected his head to the limit 
of his neck, and then exclaimed in tones of the deepest 
reverence : "I know what you are. You 're a fortune- 
teller, that 's what you are." This was the highest tribute 
he could pay her. This teacher knew everything, apparently. 
And she had gained her point. It was no slight task to 
transfigure idle curiosity into reverence, but she had succeeded 
in doing this thing. Slowly but surely she built up an altar 
in them to the unknown God, which altar was necessary 
before the God of righteousness and mercy and love could 
be preached unto them. 

Illustration is not for its own sake, but for the sake of 
the highest and holiest things. It is often the only way to 
these, and its success then saves the entire structure of 
teaching. If rightly used, it may reveal a shining pathway 
from the common things in the dusty road to the throne of 
God Himself. 



ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 137 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The Windows of Speech. 

II. Popularity of Illustrations. 

III. Masters of Illustration. 

IV. Utility of Illustrations. 

V. The Philosophy of Illustration. 

VI. Offices of Illustration. 

VII. Sources and Rules. 

VIII. An Illustration of Illustration. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. The parables of Jesus. 

2. The principles underlying the use of illustrations. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. Why do we illustrate? 

2. The popularity of illustrations. 

3. What has been your personal experience in the hear- 

ing of illustrations? 

4. Your experience in the use of illustrations? 

5. What principles underlie the use of illustrations? 

6. State the six offices of illustration named. 

7. What others can you add? 

8. Sources of illustrations. 

9. Learning to illustrate by practice. 

10. The investment of time and study in illustration. 



CHAPTER X 
A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 



CHAPTER X 
A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 

I. The Gravest of Problems 

We are accustomed to hear much of the pressing prob- 
lems of the Church. There is finance, and there is worldli- 
ness, and there are small congregations and prayer-meetings 
The Failure an< ^ revivals and missions and education ; there 
to Hold are backslidings and apostasies, and there is the 

Our Young paucity of young ministers. But it should be 
People eaS y £ or a n; to see t j iat none f these problems — 

and they are real—compare with that of young people — our 
own, born into our homes and our Churches and subject to 
our chosen modes of culture from their infancy. If we do 
not win from the world outside it is deplorable; but if we 
do not hold our own it is fatal. Secretary Randall wrote : 
"The Church must be built up from the young people. Sta- 
tistics and experience show that a church that depends upon 
conversions from mature people must die. If we despair 
of our young people we must despair of everything. The 
Church that fails with the young people fails utterly and at 
the very foundation." And it is evident that our prosperity 
is not a question of young people in general, but of our 
own first. For if we can not win and hold these, what hope 
or what need of winning those outside? 

II. Conditions of the Problem 

i. Few young people in our schools. We sat on the 

platform, not long ago, during a Sunday-school celebration 
in one of our finest churches in a great city. The pastor 
pointed to a room with a handful of pupils in it, and said, 
"There is the darkest problem of our whole work— right in 

141 8 



142 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

that room." It was the young people's class. Most of our 
pastors and other workers know something about this. A 
common observation in a Sunday-school shows a bright and 
Few Senior blessed company of beginners. They are crowd- 
Pupils ing their room and calling for larger quarters. 
in Our It is much the same with the primaries. There 
Schools j s usua Hy inspiration here. But the juniors show 
a little falling off, and the intermediates more. There are 
adult classes pretty well maintained, especially of late, under 
the stimulus of the new movement for adults ; but the seniors 
are few and far between. The Senior Department is the 
smallest in the school. Most likely there is no such depart- 
ment. Even though the school calls itself organized and 
graded, it probably has no place marked off for the youth 
whom we are studying. One of the hardest things to find, 
even in an up-to-date Sunday-school, is just this Senior De- 
partment. It lives on paper only in most schools, if indeed 
it does there. Nature has marked off this group distinctly, 
and secular education recognizes it everywhere, but in ihe 
Sunday-school it goes unnoticed and uncared for in any spe- 
cific way. What few adolescents of this age are to be found 
at all will be found either scattered among the adults or 
graded with them. 

2. It is a distinct loss. It is not as if we never had 
these individuals and had not succeeded in winning them 
from without: we have had them all, and have lost them 
We Had from our schools. It is far worse than an 

Them Dur- ordinary disappointment. More than this, we 
ing Earlier expected to keep them. We have had the care 
Years of them and have selected and used the best 

methods of training them, supposedly, with the express pur- 
pose of holding them to the school and the Church. Their 
loss discredits our methods. More than this, it discourages 
us, for it nullifies all our previous toil. What is the use 
of the lovely and promising primary work if its influence 
evaporates ? What is the use of bringing the children through 



A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 143 

the four prior departments if they are to be lost to the school 
in this ? These depressing conditions are not superficial : they 
go deep down. 

3. The fateful years. These young people are also lost 
to the Church (speaking now without reference to future 
possibilities). The problem is much wider than the school. 
Not a We have labored with these children all their 

New life. We have prayed for them and yearned over 

Problem. them with the supreme desire of seeing them dis- 

ciples of Christ and members of His Church, but many of 
them have wandered away. This has been a patent and a 
grievous fact for many years. Long ago Bishop Simpson 
was the guest of a friend of his in Gainesville, Georgia, who 
says: "We had a long and earnest talk on this subject, 
and he asked, sadly: 'What must be done? Despite our 
Sunday-schools and protracted services and professed devo- 
tion to children, we lose every year more Methodist children 
in the older Conferences than we save of adult sinners from 
the world !' " At this time revival work was at its high tide 
in our Church, bringing in probably as many converts as 
at any period in our history. And the older Conferences 
were the places where we should naturally hope for our best 
results, if our gospel is a growing thing. It is probable 
that we are losing more of our youth now than in Bishop 
Simpson's day, although it is difficult to obtain reliable figures 
upon this. Principal Ritchie and Dr. Swinnerton, of Eng- 
land, however, have made a somewhat thorough investigation 
of conditions in the Wesleyan Church, with this result : "We 
have found that the Church has retained in active member- 
ship ten per cent of Sunday-school scholars. Another ten 
per cent have hung to the skirts of the Church, while eighty 
per cent have been lost. Yet that twenty per cent constitutes 
seventy-eight per cent of the total Church membership; only 
twenty-two per cent coming in as a result of a vast expendi- 
ture of money in mission hall and other work." This is a 
dark picture, especially when we consider the diminishing 



144 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

enrollment of the Sunday-schools of that and most of the 
other Free Churches of Great Britain. It is hoped that we 
are doing a little better than this in our own Churches on 
this side of the Atlantic, but we have much to lament at best. 

4. Not the Churches alone. The problem broadens, for 
we find much the same conditions in general education. There 
are over 17,000,000 of elementary pupils in the schools of 
The Public America, and only 790,912 in the high schools 
School and academies, and 162,918 in the colleges. Natu- 
Faiis to rally we should expect fewer young people pur- 
Hold Them su j n g their studies as they grow older and the 
demand for their industrial service increases, but this dis- 
parity is alarming. It points to some dismal and perilous 
influences that are manifestly at work within the vitals of 
our young life. Where education is as much valued as it 
is throughout the civilized world, and where it is so excellent 
and so easily obtainable as in this favored land, we ought 
to expect much larger numbers of our youth to seek these 
high privileges. 

5. The lure of vice. It is distinctly the darkest stain 
upon the pages of our modern society that so many of our 
youth are yielding to the baleful enticements of vice. If 

only the neglected children grew up to practice 
Many ev j^ j t would be less strange. If only the poor 

Immoral anc * tne ignorant were ensnared, we could endure 

it better, for then we might have hope in pros- 
perity and intelligence. But it is an open secret that vast 
numbers of the young people of "the best families" are in- 
subordinate and become finally uncontrollable. They "sow 
their wild oats," and they reap the harvest that never fails. 
Our highest hopes and our fairest confidence are mocked by 
the saloons that abound in our land, and all haunts of vice 
fatten on victims that they have captured from the Churches. 
Satan is no respecter of persons. 

6. The spiritual poverty of adolescence. There are 
some flowers of youthful piety and nobility most fair. There 



A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 145 

are many who walk in wisdom's ways like angels, a delight 
to their parents and teachers and a benediction to the world. 
But there is a spiritual poverty that so widely prevails as 
A to be almost general. By this we do not mean 

Profound a scarcity of emotional experiences, of course; 

Lack of but a profound lack of the real elements of the 

High Ideals spiritual life. The many-sided allurements of a 
refined materialism seem to be the capital charm for too 
many of the young. They are fond of dress and convivial 
parties and dancing and sporting and flirtation. There is a 
conspicuous lack of devotion to high ideals, and even of 
the perception of these. There are frivolous views of life 
and its serious duties, unbecoming to the capable years of 
later youth. There is an ignorance of the Bible that as- 
tonishes college professors and others who try to converse 
seriously with young people ; and not only of this, but ig- 
norance of the poets and of the kings and queens of litera- 
ture and art in general. Our young people are thronging 
the theaters and the dance-halls and the ballgrounds, and 
they are expert in the fashions almost before these arrive; 
but multitudes mind not the things that are true and good 
and beautiful. They are content to live in the world below 
these. 

III. A Handicap on the Church 

These conditions are more than a reflection upon our 
ability and methods : they constitute a real handicap upon 
the Church in its work generally. Take the matter of evan- 
Crippies the gelism, for instance. The "sinner" is saying, 
Evangelism "Why should I enter a household of faith whose 
of tne children are leaving it ?" Take the matter of 

Church denominational education. Men of means are 

asking why they should give money to our colleges when 
so many of our children go elsewhere. Take the case of 
our mission work. The "heathen" are asking why we should 
seek to Christianize them when we can not Christianize our 

IO 3 



146 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

own sons and daughters ; and why should they espouse a 
religion that shows the most disheartening conditions where 
it has lived longest and had the opportunity to show through 
a series of years what it really is, and where it has spent 
most of its toil and treasure? 

The senior problem is not a little affair of the Sunday- 
schools : it is a prime interest of the whole Church and all 
the Churches; it belongs to the entire body that we call 
society. The condition of the young men of this country 
is a standing challenge to the strength of our civilization; 
and that of our young women is the same. 

IV. Locating the Causes 

Of course we have not mentioned these depressing things 
to leave them. It is our chief business to ascertain their 
causes, that we may remove them if possible. The most 
Where natural reply to these presentations, perhaps, is 

Does the that it is the fault of the young people them- 

Responsi- selves. They have the opportunities, and they 
bihty Lie k ave k een abundantly taught and preached at and 

warned: now if they go wrong or fail to rise to high manly 
and womanly levels, they need blame nobody but themselves. 
But this is not at all in the temper of the true teacher. 
We confess to a degree of impatience when we hear parents 
and others talking in this strain. For present purposes at 
least, it is necessary for us to set entirely aside any re- 
sponsibility that the young persons may have. The real be- 
liever in education can not get away from the fundamental 
principle that the child that is fairly and rightly trained will 
grow up into a normal manhood or womanhood. The human 
plant is at no disadvantage compared with a cactus or an 
orange tree. This is not saying that training is all of the 
two parents, for there are many other agencies to be con- 
sidered. At any rate, we are bound to examine our own 
work and to make sure that we have done our part before 
we blame the young people. 



A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 147 

Nor are we going to lay the responsibilty upon our re- 
ligion. To be sure, there are those who say that Chris- 
tianity is not suited to young people, and that they do not 
find much in it. We must proceed upon the conviction that 
the gospel is for all men and for all the years of men : there 
is no time of life to which Jesus Christ does not make His 
simple and adequate appeal, and there can be no time when 
He is willing to lose His hold upon a soul to the advantage 
of Satan. 

1. Is our theology responsible? It is less easy to 
negative this, for though the basis of theology is the divine 
revelation, there is a large human element in the super- 
0ur structure; and it is possible that this may be 

Theology at fault, so far as our work with adolescents 
at is concerned. For many generations harsh doc- 

Fault trines of God have been preached. They are 

being rapidly abandoned in our day, it is true, but they have 
produced their effects. Extravagant theories of the inspi- 
ration of the Bible have been urged upon young people. 
It does not change their results to say that we do not now 
accept these. Offensive doctrines of prayer have been put 
forth. This is but an example: "The famous John Eliot, 
missionary to the Indians, was informed that Mr. Foster, 
a godly man, had been taken prisoner and made a slave by 
a prince who had declared that no captive should be re- 
leased in his lifetime. The following Sunday, before a large 
congregation, Mr. Eliot prayed: 'Heavenly Father, work for 
the redemption of thy poor servant, Foster. If the prince 
who detains him will not dismiss him so long as he lives, 
kill him and glorify Thyself/ Mr. Foster quickly returned 
from captivity. The prince had come to an untimely death, 
and he had been set at liberty." Not long ago the late 
Dr. Joseph Parker, of London, called upon God in plain terms 
to damn the Sultan of Turkey, and the multitudes, no doubt, 
think that this prayer was answered. 

Lecky states that the leaders of the Wesleyan revival in 



148 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

the eighteenth century "were never tired of urging that all 
men are in a state of damnation who have not experienced 
a sudden, violent, and supernatural change, accompanied or 
followed by an absolute assurance of salvation and by a 
complete dominion over sin." John Wesley disavowed his 
belief in this drastic theory of salvation late in life, but 
there is no doubt of the substantial truthfulness of Lecky's 
testimony. Gloomy precepts concerning the Sabbath have 
been over-abundant, also terrible portrayals concerning hell. 
Even heaven has been painted in repellent colors. Dr. Etter 
cites the case of a little girl who was talking to her mother 
about heaven. She said, "Mamma, are there any picture- 
books in heaven?" "No," replied the parent. "No Noah's 
arks?" (a toy that she especially liked). "No," came the 
response. "No dolls?" "No," emphatically answered the 
mother. The little child dropped her head, evidently reflect- 
ing, and after a long pause she closed her meditation with 
a long-drawn sigh : "Well, then, I believe that I '11 take dollie 
and go to hell." The painful fact is, that what this child 
said in her childishness multitudes of young men and women 
have said in sober earnest. That is, they have seen nothing 
desirable in the orthodox heaven that has been preached to 
them and have discarded it as not worth while, taking their 
chances on the possible alternative. 

2. Have we lacked sympathy? Something more im- 
portant than theology must also be considered: sympathy. 
Have we manifested the true Spirit of Christ in our work 
A Lack w ^k y° un & people ? Is it true, as Stevenson 

of the affirms, that the trouble with moral men is that 

spirit of they are lacking in gentleness and kindness ? 

Christ Have we remembered that the youth are imma- 

ture and inexperienced, and often fevered with longings that 
we have outgrown? Have we never made our teaching a 
harsh infliction? Have we not been too free with our scold- 
ings and threatenings ? 

Dr. Keats, an old Eton master, is said to have really 

3 



A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 149 

flogged his boys, innocent and guilty, with indiscriminating 
delight. He once said to his class, with stern and com- 
manding manner: "Blessed are the pure in heart. Mind 
that. It 's your duty to be pure in heart, and if you are 
not pure in heart I '11 flog you." Once, on entering his 
office, he found a company of boys awaiting him. Dragging 
the first boy to the ever-present flogging-block, on which the 
writhing victim knelt, he proceeded vigorously to use his 
cruel birch. He proceeded down the line until half the class 
had received visible marks of his scholarship, when one of 
the trembling lads stammered out, "Please, sir, we 're the 
confirmation class." This is an extreme case, but we have 
seen teachers and preachers who believed in Keats' prin- 
ciple. It makes shrieking discord with the winsomeness of 
Jesus, and the young folks know it. 

3. Has the Church done her best? We fear not. With 
all her consecration and effort and glory, she has not been 
perfect — and her failure seems to have hurt her youth most. 
A She has not always been enterprising, ready to 

Distrust move out upon new lines, and she has sometimes 

of Knowl- shown fear of the truth. Concerning this latter 
ge James Russell Lowell said, "Theology will find 

out in good time that there is no atheism at once so stupid 
and so harmful as the fancying God to be afraid of any 
knowledge with which He has enabled man to equip him- 
self." The harm of this form of atheism falls cruelly upon 
studious and frank young people. 

As to the over-conservatism of the Church, take but a 
few citations. Thomas Davidson says : "From the days of 
Alcuin to the rise of Protestantism education was almost 
entirely in the hands of the clergy. Since that event, but 
particularly since the French Revolution, there has been an 
increasing tendency to withdraw it from the Church alto- 
gether and hand it over to the State. . . . Likewise we 
find public bequests diverted more and more from the Church 
to the college, the library, and the hospital or asylum. Mani- 



150 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

festly there is a feeling that the school in one form or 
another is the progressive, investigating, developing element 
in our civilization; that the Church is the conservative, 
apologetic, self-complacent, propagandic, and fossilized. This 
sounds hard, and yet the Bishop of Coventry says baldly, 
"While the school is being modernized the Church is being 
fossilized." Phillips Brooks declared that every man must 
own that his theology is harder than the New Testament, 
and that it is the New Testament and not our theology that 
we ought to teach our children. Dr. Shauffler says of min- 
isters that though they are among the first to lament the 
incompetence of Sunday-school workers they are "among the 
last to remedy the evil. Why? Because they have not 
been taught how to do it." 

"The parable of the tadpole's tail" is one of G. Stanley 
Hall's pithy illustrations. He uses it to enforce a truth that we 
must take at least a glance at: lower faculties have to be 
developed, or else the higher which should supersede them 
will never grow. He tells us that there is a function for 
the tadpole's tail. If this is cut off the legs will not grow 
quicker — they will not grow at all. The tail never falls 
off, as according to the popular notion. Never a tadpole 
lost his tail thus. It is absorbed, and in some way it makes 
the legs possible after a while. It is not enough to begin 
right with the seniors : their proper development depends 
upon things done right in the past, and if these have been 
neglected there is no doing them over or doing without them. 
If the Church has failed anywhere along the growing line, 
it must accept the responsibility for the resulting failures 
of youth. 

4. Other complications. Our problem may seem com- 
The plicated enough without anything more, but in 

Home is fact, it involves the home as well as the Church. 

Involved 'pj^ detracting competitions of society and busi- 

ness come in also, and the countless fascinations of our 
swift modern life. 

3 



A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 151 

We do not refer to any of these things lightly, and cer- 
tainly not for discouragement. On the contrary, they contain 
a basis for a solid encouragement. The huge problem of how- 
to hold and to train rightly our young people is one to be 
solved — and it can be solved. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The Gravest of Problems. 

II. Conditions of the Problem. 

III. A Handicap on the Church. 

IV. Locating the Causes. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. Why do not more young people go to college? 

2. At what period does the Church lose its hold on 

young life? 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. The recruiting ground of the Church. 

2. Why are there so few Senior Departments? 

3. What proportion of our youth may we expect to 

save? 

4. Why do so few young people go beyond the gram- 

mar grades in school? 

5. Why do not young people come to Church? 

6. The Church's share of the general responsibility. 

7. The over-conservatism of the Church. 

8. Dependence of the mission fields on the Church at 

home. 

9. What has been your experience with teachers as to 

their sympathy? 
10. Our duty to set forth the gospel in its simplicity 
and purity. 



CHAPTER XI 

MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS 



CHAPTER XI 
MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS 

I. The Coming of the Young 

In the new day that is even now dawning on the Church 
there will be young people within her fold: not a lonesome 
and exceptional few here and there, but great hosts of them. 
Youth will They will "crowd her gates with thankful joy." 
Find Satis- They will not be driven in, but will come gladly 
faction in an( i vvith enthusiasm to serve the Bride of Christ, 
Religion an( j j n t kj s tQ j^jp tQ saye t j ie wor ] ( j They will 

come then as they throng the broad road of pleasure now. 
They will seek the same satisfactions, but of different and 
deeper needs. They will show an exuberant self-expression, 
but from changed impulses and aims. They will not be 
radically changed: that is, they are not to skip the period 
of youth and become prematurely old; but they will find 
religious ideals that are attractive to them. They will re- 
act to these because of their truth and their adaptation to 
themselves. The young people of the future will be more 
nearly normal in their youth than they are now. Youth 
will be rectified and intensified, rather than obliterated. The 
morbid craving of the young for excitement and dissipation 
is curbed in their interest, for as it is gratified it tends to 
darken youth and to hurry on the infirmities of age. To 
cut out the excesses and the extravagances of j^outh is to 
purify it and perfect it. Religion can do this, and some day 
the young people of our land will learn this capital lesson. 
They will turn from the things that have mocked them 
so long to the fountains of living waters. They will sur- 
render the carnal and the material in the interest of the spir- 

155 3 



156 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

itual. They will no longer deprive their noblest powers of 
due nourishment or exercise. They will seek the develop- 
ment of the whole nature harmoniously. 

II. The Religiousness of Youth 

Does the foregoing sound like a rosy prophecy? Is it 
too good to be true? We can easily see how much it would 
mean to the Church and the kingdom if it should come 
The Basis *° P ass - ^ ** should happen all at once it would 
for this be a revolution more tremendous than any the 

Vitaiization Church has ever known. Of course, this will 
o outh not SQ happgn- k u t whenever and however it 

does happen, the results will be grand in the same degree. 
The question is, whether this glorious vitaiization (it should 
scarcely be called a revival) of our youth is a reasonable hope. 
We think that it can be shown to be such. 

In the first place, there is the religious nature of man. 
This is essential and universal. "Man is incurably religious." 
All men show its signs, and these appear at all times of the 
life. They do not wait to manifest themselves until maturity, 
or even youth. In early childhood unmistakable expressions 
of piety are noted, and this in striking forms. There is no 
doubt that we are born with a capacity for religion, just 
as we are born with a capacity for intelligence. The ancients 
perceived this in their way. Among the Romans the custom 
prevailed of holding the face of every new-born infant toward 
the heavens, signifying by thus presenting his forehead to 
the stars that he was to look above the world into celestial 
glories. Quite recently the correspondence column of the 
British Weekly contained this question from a boy eight years 
old: "Did Jesus, while a Babe in the manger at Bethlehem, 
know or was He conscious of the details of His future life 
in the world?" Of this one of our editors says: "At first 
we are inclined to marvel at this boy's bent of mind, and 
wonder that one so young should propound so mystical a 
question. But any one who has been accustomed to children 

3 



MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS 157 

of that age knows that such questions are common with them. 
Who has not been asked the most difficult questions by his boy 
or girl, questions dealing with the sublime phases of religion, 
questions that could not be answered, yet they are such that 
the father himself has asked his own soul time and again?" 

III. Early Consecration 

No facts are any more marked in our Church life than 
the consecration of little children. Multitudes of these have 
come to Jesus in simple faith and have been blessed by a 
Religious glowing experience of conscious spiritual life. 
Experiences When Henry Drummond was in this country a 
o f few years ago he told the students of Amherst 

Children College that it was in a children's meeting at 

Stirling that he came to spiritual consciousness and began 
purposefully to live the new life "which is by the faith of the 
Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us." Judged 
even by the usual tests for adult conversions, such childhood 
experiences are genuine, nothing being wanting to assure us 
of their reality. There is not the slightest doubt that there 
are thousands of real religious experiences in child life that 
bring the child to Jesus and unite him to the Savior which 
are not rightly interpreted. 

For instance, the conversion of John Wesley has been a 
mooted question. It has been something of a quiet wonder 
that such an evangelist as he should have left us so little 
in the way of definite data concerning "the day and the hour 
and the minute" of his conscious deliverance from sin. In 
the absence of a better, many have taken the date of his 
experience in Aldersgate Chapel when he said that his "heart 
was strangely warmed" as that of his conversion. But the 
account of this experience lacks elements that we are accus- 
tomed to make much of in the crisis of conversion, and the 
tendency now is to believe that Wesley came into a vital spir- 
itual experience as a child in Epworth Rectory, under the 
direct religious tutelage of his incomparable mother, and that 

3 



158 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

the precise moment of change he never knew, if indeed there 
was any critical moment. His heart was warmed, doubtless, 
by many a conscious contact with the Spirit of God in later 
years, but it is impossible to read the life of John Wesley and 
count him as a lost sinner at any period of it. 

It is surprising to some to look into the matter of early 
religion and find how many Christians date their religious 
life from childhood, and how many can no more remember 
when they began to love God than when they began to love 
their parents. Several years ago a prominent religious weekly 
sent a questionnaire on this point to a large number of the 
most eminent and useful ministers of the gospel. Two-thirds 
of them answered that they had grown up in religion and did 
not know when they were converted. Polycarp was con- 
verted at nine years of age, Matthew Henry at eleven, Presi- 
dent Edwards at seven, Dr. Watts at nine, Bishop Hall at 
eleven, and Robert Hall at twelve. 

We are aware that childhood is not the senior age, but 
have dwelt upon early religion at some length because of 
its bearing upon the religion of youth. For it is impossible 
The Religion ^ ia ^ * n ^ e norma l ongoing of God's religious 
of Youth plan for us religion should be introduced into 

a Devel- childhood to be withdrawn during the years of 

opment youth, or during any later years. It is not strange 

that it should begin with the life. Anything else would 
require explanation. But it would be impossible to under- 
stand why God should abandon the growng child just in the 
years when the divine care is most needed, and leave him 
to be the prey of all the aggressive temptations of the world, 
the flesh, and the devil. Nor can we assume any relaxation 
of the fatherly care of God or the diminution of any of the 
spiritual forces that hold the soul to righteousness and faith- 
fulness. This is also unthinkable. We must assume the 
normal temper of youth to be spiritual and may therefore 
hope for the coming of the time when the spiritual shall 
come to its own with the young. 

3 



MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS 159 

IV. Christian Young People 

We are not shut up to theory here, for there are great 
numbers of youth who have the experience and live the life 
of the Christian. There is nothing more beautiful in the rich 
life of the Church than these bright trophies of her work. 
They are found in every local church and Sunday-school — 
clean, active, faithful, and charming. None are more de- 
voted than they, when they are devoted; and none are more 
efficient in the various forms of Church work. They can 
show indisputable evidences of religion, pure and undenled. 
It is hard to see how the Church could live- without them. 
It begins to look as if they were to be the nucleus of a new 
movement that will carry the Church into a larger life than 
she has ever known. Note the organization of the young 
people's societies of the various Churches in recent years. 
This movement has reached an astonishing magnitude, and 
it was not put upon the youth by their elders ; it was a 
spontaneous demand for larger service and the experience that 
grows out of this by the young people themselves. 

Notice also the entry of the young people into the various 
lines of churchly activities in larger numbers than ever be- 
fore. They are not only active in their own organizations, 
but they are doing a vast deal of Sunday-school work, in- 
cluding that of Home Department and Cradle Roll visitation, 
and other work as well. They have turned their attention 
to missions, and as a result there are large numbers of our 
girls organized into auxiliaries of the women's missionary 
societies. There are mission study classes also, where both 
young women and young men are busy gathering the data 
of mission work in all lands. The Student Volunteer Move- 
ment and the Young People's Missionary Movement are 
two remarkable manifestations of the religious life of the 
young people of our day. A Student Volunteer convention 
has just been held at which 3,007 delegates were present 
from 722 colleges and schools in forty-nine States and 
provinces. Within the last four years 1,275 Volunteers have 

3 



160 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

gone to the mission fields. At the closing session of this 
convention the names of sixty-one Volunteers were read, and 
it was stated that these had died in service within three years. 
Following this, ninety-one Volunteers arose and declared their 
intention to sail soon for the fields to which they have already 
been appointed. Such consecration do we find in young 
Christians. 

V. Religious Endowments of Youth 

There are other things that must also be regarded in any 
fair estimate of the future of the Church: the peculiar re- 
ligious endowments of adolescents. For it is certain that 
in some important respects it has pleased God to show re- 
ligious favors in an unusual degree to youth. 

The young man has an ethical vision that is essentially 
new, and therefore bright. He possesses a keenness of moral 
insight that he never had before, and that he will never 
have again if he is unappreciative of it. Right 
is mightily right, and wrong is tremendously 
wrong. He does not temporize or falter, as possibly his elders 
do. He recks less of personal advantage in settling a line 
of conduct than do they. His clear vision is conducive to 
pure motives and right actions. It is a misfortune to see 
too many things sometimes, for they prevent us from seeing 
the best things clearly and deeply. The moral vision of youth 
is a divine gift and essentially a religious advantage. 

The young man loves the truth. He loves Christianity 
because it makes its powerful appeal to truth, and is drawn 
to Jesus Christ because He was so outspoken against hypoc- 
risy and Pharisaism and so bold in proclaiming 
the truth and defying a world that would not 
allow the truth to interfere with its selfish interests. There 
is no mistaking the tendency of Mammon to blind the eyes 
of truth and to stifle her inspiration. As men grow older 
it becomes harder for them to judge things with candor, 
free from the solicitation of their vested interests. The young 

3 



MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS 161 

have few vested interests. They are charmed by the fair 

face of Truth and wish only to dwell in her holy company. 

Hope is a divine gift to the young. They have felt less 

of the harshness of the world and the disappointments of 

human life, and are inclined to believe in God and man. 

They are not occupied in mourning over the past. 

They do not believe that the old days were the 

best days. They believe in progress and in the God of 

progress, and therefore look forward for the best days. This 

makes them cheerful and keeps them companionable. They 

can easily illustrate the social principle, which is not only 

Christian, but most profoundly Christian. 

Human sympathy and affection come in here. With the 
efflorescence of youth there comes a baptism of love for all 
the world. The affection that springs into the lives of two 
mating souls transfigures the world to them and 
beams upon all who have hearts. Youth loves 
naturally and easily. There is not space here to do justice 
to this master passion. Suffice it to say that it is essentially 
religious and a real religious asset of youth. "He that loveth 
is born of God." 

Loyalty is a characteristic of normal youth. Whom the 
young man chooses he consecrates himself to. If the youth 
chooses Christ at all, he is likely to give Him his whole 
heart in a service that is uncalculating and unre- 
served. He likes to act in this way. He does 
not enjoy separating and dividing his allegiance. He has no 
patience with those who try to serve two masters. This 
outrages his sense of reason and of right. A single glance 
at the army of the Lord or at any other army is sufficient 
to illustrate this. A great-hearted general can do anything 
with a brigade of young soldiers. This is why he prefers 
young soldiers to older and less spontaneous men. The most 
loyal body in the Great Captain's army to-day is His young 
people. 

Out of loyalty springs zeal. Not without purpose is the 

II 3 



ife THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

blood of youth a degree warmer than that of the adult. He 
likes to work hard and fast, and to see things accomplished. 
The disposition of the older person to sit in the chair and 
oppose innovations and reformations is unnatural 
to youths, who wish to arise and move out and 
march on and work with all their might for results as 
speedy as may be. 

These dispositions of youth are clearly marked and con- 
stitute a sort of special endowment. We can not think of 
them as meaningless. The Creator evidently intended young 
people to be religious and to manifest a distinctly motor type 
of religion. Judging from these qualities, we should expect 
to find their piety as pure and fair as their faces. Nor 
should we ever forget that as a matter of fact most of those 
who begin the Christian life begin it before the close of the 
period that we are studying. Of all the Christians now 
living in the world, but a comparatively few were converted 
after they were twenty years of age. 

VI. The Infirmities of Youthful Christians 

We are often pointed to sundry things in the religious 
life of children and youth that are inconsistent with a Christly 
spirit. There are sometimes outbursts of temper and hasty 
Their Short- words and unlovely actions, it is true. But are 
comings adult Christians free from these and all other 

Common to sins ? Are they never slothful or selfish or angry 
Christians or wor idl y ? If such things are not to be con- 
of All Ages . < f r . 

sidered sure proof of an unregenerate heart in 

the case of an adult, how can they be so considered in young 
people? Is it not true that these slight lapses are fewer and 
milder and shorter in the young than those of mature years? 
What did the apostle mean by saying to the Corinthians, 
"Yet in malice be ye babes ?" Did he not recognize in this 
the brevity of an anger that does not go deep, and that soon 
gives place to the smiles of love? It is not hard to trace 
the stumbling of young people to obstacles that they are not 



MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS 163 

fully familiar with, while the stumbling of older Christians 
occurs in spite of many sad experiences and multiplied warn- 
ings. Candidly, we find in the practical working of their 
religious life nothing that warrants us in making a special 
plea for them or placing them below the standards established 
by their elders. 

VII. Natural Blossoms 

Our conclusion is that young people ought to be religious 
and can be religious and are religious ; that religion is native 
to youth; that the Creator wills that all, including young 
Religion men anc * women, should be holy; and that the 

Is Na- fairest blossoms in the flowering of adolescence 

tive to are those of religion. It is as natural for them 

Youth to be Christians as it is for the morning-glory 

to open its lovely blossoms in the dawn of the day. And 
these dainty flowers of finely varied hues, penciled as by an 
angel's hand, are no unreal symbols of early piety. 

In a large view of things, we can see something of the 
transformation which slowly operates to bring all things to 
the ideals of nature. What is natural, in the true sense, is 
God's design, and to this all things in the changing world 
are tending. All the phenomena of the spiritual life of the 
young indicate that the ideal of Christ's kingdom is early 
conversion, and that all souls are called of God as soon as 
they are created. In the ongoings and unfoldings of God's 
providence we may well expect to see, by and by, all our 
young people taught of God and rejoicing to bear the yoke 
of Christ in the beauty of their youth. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The Coming of the Young. 

II. The Religiousness of Youth. 

III. Early Consecration. 

IV. Christian Young People. 



164 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

V. Religious Endowments of Youth. 
VI. The Infirmities of Youthful Christians. 
VII. Natural Blossoms. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. The essential requirements of the religious life. 

2. Which is superior, the adolescent or the adult type 

of piety? 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

i. Can young people be happy in the Church? 

2. Does Christianity give scope for the lively activities 

of youth? 

3. What is your personal judgment of the piety of 

youth ? 

4. What traits can you name in addition to those 

enumerated in the lesson? 

5. How can a young child be a Christian? 

6. Is it necessary to know just when we are converted? 

7. Why are so few older persons converted? 

8. Do young people stumble more than older Chris- 

tians ? 

9. Why do people get harder and colder as they grow 

older? 



CHAPTER XII 

HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO 
SENIORS 



CHAPTER XII 
HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS 

I. Examining Ourselves 

In our study of the senior problem (Chapter X) we 
found the conditions dark, but hopeful. The light of this 
hope shines from two directions : the pupils and the teachers. 
The im- ^ n ^ e * ast cna P ter we found a hopeful condition 

provement of the first magnitude in the religious nature 
of the of the adolescent. If he were irreligious there 

Teacher would be nothing for us to work upon, and there 

consequently would be no hope. But he is strongly religious, 
and our opportunity therefore is great. Then, there is the 
question of the teachers — ourselves : have we done our best, 
according to the best methods, to preserve the souls of our 
boys and girls unsullied and loyal through the dangerous 
straits of adolescence? The encouraging answer to this ques- 
tion is not yes, but no. For if we have done our best, there 
is nothing to hope for in any attempted improvement of 
our methods. And the correct answer is no : we have not 
exhausted the possibilities of scientific spiritual culture with 
our young people. It becomes another consideration of the 
first magnitude how we shall so work in the future as to 
succeed w r here we have failed in the past. 

II. The Shortcomings of the Past 

There is no straighter way to what we seek than via the 
consideration of our past shortcomings or failures or mis- 
takes, whatever they may be. They are not hard to find. 
The scientific study of youth is a new thing in the world. 
Man busied himself for many thousands of years before he 
turned his attention to this immensely important matter. Of 

167 8 



i68 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

the fruitful results of this study we have hitherto been de- 
prived, of course. All our work thus far has been done 
without the aid of this new science. We have been under 
The the unspeakable disadvantage of working upon 

Reason of souls that we did not understand, and as an 
Failure inevitable consequence our judgments have some- 

times been erroneous, our sympathies stifled, and, sometimes, 
our anger roused. The things that separate souls have acted 
in their invariable way and our pupils have been pushed out 
of our reach. Then we have failed to understand our own 
religion and its Founder. We have narrowed and sometimes 
embittered it in offering it to our youth. We have taken the 
bread of life from the hands of Jesus and have pounded and 
peppered it before handing it to those we loved best. Some 
day the why of this will be the wonder of the religious 
world. Again, we have given the eager minds and the out- 
stretched hands of our young people nothing to do in the 
Church. We seem to have expected them to grow up in 
spiritual health without spiritual exercise. We have made 
the Church a prison and shut them up in it. In recent years 
these conditions have begun to be improved, but in general 
they remain about as they have been through the centuries, 

III. How to Improve Our Work 

The question before us now is, how to improve our work so 
as to win our pupils. A few major principles we may study: 
i. Establish confidence. The demand for absolute con- 
fidence between teacher and pupils is nowhere greater than 
here. We should believe in them: their nature and desires 

and possibilities ; and they should believe in us : 
Fellowship * n our knowledge, our wisdom, and our sympathy. 

We should meet them on their own level. They 
are no longer children, and they feel older and wiser than 
they are. They are not disposed to look up, and we must 
be disposed to look down. It is now time for schoolmasterish 
airs to evaporate. They are usually offensive, anyway. The 



HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS 169 

teacher may now be more of a companion to the pupil than 
a master. He should so absorb and assimilate this principle 
that it will color him through and through. Even his tones 
and accents and modulations will reveal him as a helper 
rather than as a driver. Every cheerful word and every 
bright glance will be his testimony to his pupils that he 
recognizes them as members of our Father's family, waiting 
and willing in the presence of the Bread of Life. 

Let it not be thought that this is a slight advantage. 
One of the best teachers that ever taught — Arnold, of Rugby — 
in his recent day, said this in a letter written after his ap- 
pointment : "My object will be, if possible, to form Christian 
men; for Christian boys I can scarcely hope to maka I 
mean that from the naturally imperfect state of bo}diood 
they are not susceptible of Christian principles in their full 
development upon their practice, and I suspect that a low 
standard of morality in many respects must be tolerated 
amongst them, as it was on a larger scale in what I con- 
sider the boyhood of the race." Yet it should be said that 
this illustrious schoolmaster lived to change his views. 

This recognition of genuine spiritual values will make it 
easy for us to converse freely with our pupils, to become 
intimately acquainted with them, and to be promoted by them 
to the high place of a friend. Thus the teacher's influence 
will be extended beyond Sunday. The pupil will have a 
teacher and a friend every day in the week. Let us hear 
Bishop Vincent on this : "The sharp line drawn between 
educational processes and ordinary every-day life is most un- 
fortunate. The limiting of intellectual activity and its best 
fruits to institutions and libraries and formal curricula and 
class drills leaves out the larger field of opportunity, worth 
as much as these, and without which these lose a large share 
of their value. It is like that other perversion which limits 
religion to the Church." Only through such channels of 
intimacy does the warm stream of religious influence flow 
from teacher to pupil. 

3 



170 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

2. Avoid the use of force. It is of no use in this 
grade. Anything like an attempt at coercion is usually fatal. 
One of the first traits of the adolescent we have learned to 
be independence. He may overwork this, but 
Abjure q 0( j g ave ft f- h ml Whatever force may have 

Authority done in earlier years, it can do nothing but mis- 
chief now. It is true that human nature lusts 
for power, and that most of us know what it is to long to 
lord it over somebody. But this is one of the things the 
Christian has subdued and crucified, for it can not stay where 
Christ is. In order to teach a young man you must get him 
to your side, and a club is not a good invitation. 

A long time ago a student went to his pastor with a 
question upon a scientific point which he thought to be in 
conflict with the Bible. Instead of a kindly explanation, he 
received this answer: "You need to have a piece of tan- 
bark broken over your head." It is not surprising that this 
minister was not asked again to instruct this inquisitive 
young mind, nor that the young man concluded at once that 
the minister did not really believe in the truth of the Bible 
himself. He went on through the university, and then settled 
down in the same city where he was a Church member when 
he sought his pastor's help. But he turned away from the 
Church, of course, and he used his influence against the 
Church. Further, he opposed Christian ministers and held 
them up to derision. He devoted years to leading young 
men into infidelity in the same town where he received that 
insulting blow. We may blame him, but can we wonder at 
him? 

There is an authority to which all, young and old, are 
subject. But it is not in our hands, nor in anybody's hands. 
When Peter got the keys of the kingdom, he received no 
authority to turn them over to anybody else. We believe 
in the universal priesthood of believers, by which every soul 
may go directly to God, and with this goes the "freedom 
for which Christ set us free." We call no man master, for 

3 



HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS 171 

One is our Master, even Christ. All authority over souls 
belongs to Him, in spite of the pretensions of Churches and 
popes and priests and all others. Therefore this authority 
lies within His truth. It is an internal authority which 
compels by moral force. In the words of Dr. W. L. Hervey: 
"Let us here distinguish between two things radically dif- 
ferent. For there is an authority that works from without 
and there is an authority that works from within; and the 
working of these is vitally different, each from the other. 
External authority says, 'You must believe because I say so, 
or because the Book says so.' Its attitude is one of com- 
pulsion from without. The voice of authority that speaks 
from within says, T must believe because I can not do other- 
wise — because this is the truth, and I know it.' External 
authority says, 'This is true because it is the Bible.' Internal 
authority says, This is the Bible because it is true/ " If 
the teacher abjures all divine prerogatives himself and brings 
the power of the truth to bear upon his pupils, he will see 
what real authority is. He will realize that he possesses 
no coercive power, and that he needs none. 

3. Avoid dogmatism. There is a new birth of intellect 
within the adolescent, and he delights to try everything by 
intellectual processes. He will be glad to learn our system 
Trust in the °^ trut ^ because all truth fascinates him. But 
Inherent we must do more than call our religion true: 

Power we must treat it like truth and show it to be 

of Truth truth. It is said of Martin Luther that he once 

hurled a dogma at his congregation with the words, "I shall 
prove this doctrine so unanswerably that any one of you 
who does not believe it will be damned." The entire "believe- 
or-be-damned" system is discredited, as it ought to be. Its 
natural expression is the torture of the Inquisition, not the 
beautiful beatitudes of the Master. It is as needless as is 
force. To show the truth is sufficient. It does not have 
to be pounded into an eager mind with a club, and when 
the club is brought out that same mind quickly infers that 



172 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

what is offered is not the truth. With dogmatism goes the 
dogmatic style. This is not helpful to the teacher of young 
people. It may be questioned whether it has any value any- 
where nowadays. The "bow-wow" style of teaching has given 
place to something quieter and more courteous and more 
convincing among intelligent people. 

4. Avoid gush and cant. These are subtle foes which 
may influence us though we are unaware of them. Young- 
people are peculiarly susceptible to frankness. They respond 
Be readily to the candid approach. It is a specifica- 

Absolutely tion of their endowment of transparent sincerity. 
Honest and There is a lying element in gush and cant that 
outrages their sense of honesty. Their warmth 
of heart may impel them to social exchanges that perhaps 
sound to us like gush, but religious gush is a totally dif- 
ferent thing. Simpering saints and tearful teachers do not 
get on well with matter-of-fact youth. A prominent evan- 
gelist has a posed picture in a Church paper, with a sermon 
which contains this : "If all the mathematicians of the past 
agreed that two times two always make four, and I found 
where the Savior said they made five, I would say in my 
heart that some day it would be found that Jesus was right." 
The average young man would say in his heart that this 
evangelist does not know what truth is. 

The cant that is really responsible for a good deal of 
the ridicule that young folks indulge in at the expense of 
the Bible and the Church is illustrated in the story of the 
boy who read in his Testament that Peter went up on the 
housetop to pray. This boy was familiar with steep roofs, 
and no others. So he went to his teacher with a skeptical 
question of how Peter could climb up a steep roof or why 
he would sit astride the ridgepole to say his prayers. The 
teacher sternly said, "You should not cavil at the Holy Scrip- 
tures." He went to the superintendent with the matter, and 
that worthy brother, who also was unfamiliar with Oriental 
house-roofs, said: "You did not answer him right. You 

3 



HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS 173 

should have told him that with men this would indeed be 
impossible, but with God all things are possible. ,, It is never 
safe to pretend to understand the Bible when we do not, 
nor to demand belief without an intelligent basis for belief; 
nor to take refuge from an inquiring mind in pious platitudes 
or any other insincerity. You can not make a healthy young 
mind believe that "the harder a text is to believe the more 
merit there is in believing it," or that "faith is believing 
something that you know is not so." 

IV. Some Fundamental Matters 

1. Religion and truth. One of the first things for us 
to do is to establish the proposition tkat our religion is true 
and that it fears no truth in any domain. It is true in the 

ordinary sense of truth. There is no special 
° ur > _ kind of truth for religious uses. What we ask 

is True our y° un S people to believe is really so, just as 

the mathematics and physics that they learn in 
school are really so. There is no merit in calling a false thing 
or a false man true because he or it belongs to the Church. 
There is no bridge of sighs leading to the portals of the Church 
inscribed, "Abandon truth, all ye who enter here." Rather 
let the young man see that He who says, "I am the Door" 
declares also, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." 

2. Religion and character. No summing up of religion 
that excludes character, or allows character in any way to 
be excluded, will prove valuable with young people. No real 

necessity ever arises or can arise for disparaging 
to°be Valued righteousness or morality (which is the same 

thing). No Christian profession or ecclesiastical 
honors can exempt any man from the operation of the 
moral law. "Salvation by faith" does not imply the dis- 
regard of goodness in men, and no man need feel any fear 
of getting into bad company in heaven. 

This topic and the following will receive additional atten- 
tion later. 

3 



174 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

3. The one consecration. This is to the service of 
men. It is comprehensive, being the reflection of that of the 
Master. It is this that is saving the world, and it is this 

that is saving those who are doing it. Why do 
Service so man y Christians backslide? Because they do 

not work for God. Salvation is not by any 
means a momentary thing. Forgiveness of sin is not salva- 
tion, any more than birth is the whole lifetime. Our salva- 
tion is something that must be worked out through years 
of faithful service. The doctrine, "Once in grace, always in 
grace," is abhorrent. Never allow the young to believe that 
the divine forgiveness of their sins is a fire insurance for 
their souls. They should be taught the reality and the neces- 
sity of the religious life, and inspired to live it. 

<. The one truth. In studying the teachings of Jesus 
Christ, we find that they circle around one great, compre- 
hensive truth — that God is our Father. All other truths of 

theology live by this and are in harmony with 
Our Father * t# ^in, forgiveness, punishment, suffering, sanc- 

tification, providence, prayer, eternal life, and all 
the rest are to be interpreted in the light of the Fatherhood 
of God. In our work with seniors we should declare this, 
and return to it, and illuminate it, and explain by it. It meets 
the highest and most mysterious longings of youth. It is 
precisely the food that his soul most hungers for. 

The first great aim of the teacher should be to win the 
pupils to God, if they have not already given their hearts 
to Him. It will be easy to do this if he declares Christ's 
gospel of a living and loving Father, waiting to be gracious 
and longing for His straying children to return to Him. A 
thoughtful girl of sixteen years, living in the country at a 
distance from the church, which made her attendance irreg- 
ular, read one Sunday the memoir of a Christian woman. 
On closing the volume she said, "That was a beautiful life/* 
And after a little thought, she added, "And I should like to 
live such a life." A few minutes later she kneeled down and 



HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS 175 

said, "Lord, I will try from this time." The decision was 
made. She went on steadily, and is now a useful and influ- 
ential Christian woman, honored and beloved, and widely 
known for her beautiful and devoted character. This inci- 
dent, related by Dr. Hallock, shows how near God is and how 
easily the young may find Him. 

But conversion is not the only aim. The new-born Chris- 
tian life must be nourished and directed. The teacher's 
ceaseless work is right here. The teaching of religion is 
essential to the spiritual growth of our pupils. 

5. The dual principle. Certain of our great teachers, 
such as Bushnell and Gladden and King, have told us that 
the Christian faith is well summed up in a single word, 
"Friendship," which they interpret as love to God 
^ he and love to man. Dr. Trumbull calls friendship 

of Friendship "^ master passion," and love is its vital prin- 
ciple. Jesus tells us that love to God and to 
man are the two great commandments upon which all the 
law and the prophets hang. Dr. King says: "The New 
Testament everywhere conceives the relation in which the 
disciple stands to God as an individual, intimate, constant, 
and unobtrusive personal relation of the Spirit of God to 
man's spirit. Others figures of speech are used in setting 
forth this relation; but the dominant conception throughout 
the New Testament is personal. We have a clear right, 
therefore, to affirm that from the point of view of Christ's 
own teaching and of the New Testament generally, the Chris- 
tian life is to be conceived as a personal relation of friendship, 
with God on the one hand and our fellow-men on the other. 
When, then, you are trying to bring your pupils into the 
Christian life, you are seeking to introduce them into a life 
even so simple as this. You are only trying to persuade them 
to be good friends of the Heavenly Father, true brothers 
one of another." 

The greatest of the Hebrew patriarchs was called "the 
friend of God." Jesus said to His disciples, "I have called 



176 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

you friends." In the clear light of this familiar human rela- 
tion the teacher may effectually display at once the simplicity 
and the depth of the religion of Jesus Christ to his pupils. 
He may exhibit the Almighty to them as One interested in 
all their pleasures, attentive to all their needs, patient with 
their ignorance, tender in his treatment of their doubts, com- 
forting them in their troubles, inspiring them with holy ideals 
and guiding them ever in their pursuit. He stands revealed 
in Jesus Christ, from whose hand they may take the bread 
of life, and who will reveal to them continually new wonders 
of the Divine friendship. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. Examining Ourselves. 

II. The Shortcomings of the Past. 

III. How to Improve Our Work. 

IV. Some Fundamental Matters, 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. Religion as a subject for instruction. 

2. The problem of authority. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

i. Have we always taught religion in the best way? 

2. The value of the new knowledge of childhood and 

youth. 

3. The basis of confidential relations between teacher 

and pupil. 

4. The use of authority in teaching. 

5. What is there wrong in the dogmatic style of teach- 

ing? 

6. The mischief of cant. 

7. Is there any truth that the youth needs to be warned 

against ? 

8. The need of emphasis upon morality. 

9. Growth through service. 

10. The fundamental truth of the Fatherhood of God. 

II. Religion in the light of friendship. 

8 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE TEACHING OF MORALS 
AND MANNERS 



12 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS 

I. The Same Subject Continued 

The title of this chapter does not displace religion. If 
"conduct is three-fourths of life/* religion must either em- 
brace conduct or be shut out of the most of life. Where 
The can one draw the line between morals and re- 

Relation ligion? For our purposes the two are one. The 

Between teacher aims at both in his work, and often 

Religion teaches both with the same word. Nor can 

morals be sharply separated from manners. Re- 
ligion as we understand it is so broad as to include the moral 
and social life, with all their normal expression. 

There are other conceptions of religion. There is the 
ritualistic, for instance. Among the Jews the rabbis taught 
that at the close of the Feast of Tabernacles a procession, 
led by the priests, should move from the Pool of Siloam to 
the Temple, and there pour water from the Pool upon the 
altar. It was a long dispute between the schools whether 
the water should be poured in a funnel at the top of the 
altar or at the base. One high priest ventured to pour it in 
at the base, and had by this act brought on a riot in which 
six thousand people perished. If this is religion, morals are 
certainly another thing. 

There are certain emphases that alter the real content 
of religion. Dr. Dillon Bronson writes : "I wish we realized 
that death is not to be eternally preached about. At revivals 
and camp-meetings we hear quite too much of it. What 
is the use? Let the dead rest. Phillips Brooks used to say, 
'We have no more to do with dying than being born.* Living 

179 z 



180 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

is the great responsibility. Death is only an incident, and 
there are multitudes of heathen who do not fear to die. 
During the war with Russia thousands of aged Japanese wept 
immoderately because they were not allowed to shed their 
blood for Nippon. I am sure that thousands of Chinese 
would commit suicide for $5 each. This is timely. If we live 
well we shall die well. The religion that makes a man's 
life a success may be trusted with his death without a word. 
The Master looked at it in this way. He was always preach- 
ing the religion of a pure life and of good deeds. Religion 
with Him was neither a ritual nor a prospect of death. He 
said, "If ye love Me keep My commandments, ,, which de- 
notes a religion of moral activities. 

Then, we should give morals due attention because the 
overwhelming problems of our day are moral problems. Not 
long ago President David Starr Jordan declared that "the 
energy of one-third of the young men of this country is 
wasted and the benefit they might be to the nation is lost 
because of their habits. I am perfectly sincere," said he, "and 
do not believe that my statement is in any danger of being 
contradicted when I say that, roughly approximated, one- 
third of the young men of this country are wasting them- 
selves through intemperate habits and the accompanying vices. 
They are not only rendering themselves valueless during their 
life, but they are shortening that life." This is but a single 
reference to the most serious problem that the Sunday-school 
teacher has to solve. 

II. The Moral Life 

Morals and manners are the blossoms and the fruitage 
of the tree of religion. That is, religion is the vital principle 
which, like the sap of the tree, exists not for itself, but to 
grow the foliage and the fruits of character. Religion is 
naught without consecration, and this impels to the moral 
life. Without consecration there is only selfishness, which is 
stark immorality. Ruskin describes these two lives thus : 



TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS 181 

"Men's proper business in this world falls properly into three 
divisions : First, to know themselves and the existing state 
Religion °*' things they have to do with. Secondly, to be 

Bears Fruit happy in themselves and the existing state of 
in Moral things. Thirdly, to mend themselves and the 

existing state of things, as far as either is marred 
or mendable. These, I say, are the three plain divisions of 
proper human business on this earth. For these three the fol- 
lowing are usually substituted and adopted by human crea- 
tures : First, to be ignorant of themselves and the existing 
state of things. Secondly, to be miserable in themselves and 
in the existing state of things. Thirdly, to let themselves 
and the existing state of things alone (at least in the way 
of correction)." 

It is highly erroneous and dangerous to slur morality in 
any interest. "Mere morality" is one of those mischievous 
expressions which mistaken men have used to exalt religion. 
This is always unnecessary. Some one said: "Mere morality ! 
You might as well say, mere God." Morality is righteous- 
ness; it is purity, holiness, activity, consecration. It is good- 
ness, for it is the keeping of God's commandments. It makes 
character — the character that renders us fit for heaven. So 
far from being a rival of religion, it is religion's nearest 
kin, so near as to be a part of herself. It is the evidence, 
the flowering, the beauty of religion. There can be no char- 
acter without the moral life; which is only saying that a man 
must be good to have goodness. It is a relic of pagan 
theology that a sinner's repentance and faith can avail to 
blot out the past and change facts and memories and furnish 
him instantaneously with a complete outfit of the moral 
virtues. The divine forgiveness never promises that. The 
virtues grow out of the personal will, exercised through a 
long series of human experiences. He only is moral 
who chooses the right in the conflict with wrong, religion 
aiding him by pouring upon his fire the oil of the grace 
of God, 

3 



182 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

III. Manners 

We talk of kindliness, of courtesy, of the personal charm, 
and call this rare quality manners, or something else; but 
as has been intimated, it is not to be strongly distinguished 
The from morals. The gentleman is the opposite of 

Christian the rascal, yet he is named from gentleness, which 
is God's is a manners' word. We all admire manners 

Gentleman an( j y{ t \^ ± their charm. Emerson says that 
"a beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; a beautiful 
behavior is better than a beautiful form; it gives higher 
pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine 
arts. A man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects 
of nature ; yet, by the moral quality radiating from his counte- 
nance, he may abolish all considerations of magnitude, and 
in his manners equal the majesty of the world." Literature 
is full of this charm: without it there could scarcely be any 
literature except the mechanical and the prosy. 

Recall Hawthorne's "Phoebe." She was like a ray of sun- 
light in the forlorn lives of Clifford and Hepzibah. She came 
where she was not wanted, was told to go away, but stayed 
because she was indispensable. She transfigured the lives 
of the two old sufferers and fascinated everybody. "She 
shocked no canon of taste ; she was admirably in keeping with 
herself, and never jarred against surrounding circumstances. 
There was both luster and depth in her eyes. She was very 
pretty, as graceful as a bird, and graceful in much the same 
way; as pleasant about the house as a gleam of sunshine 
falling on the floor through a shadow of twinkling leaves, 
or as a ray of firelight that dances on the wall while evening 
is drawing near." "Now Phoebe's presence made a home 
about her — that very sphere which the outcast, the prisoner, 
the potentate — the wretch beneath mankind, the wretch aside 
from it, or the wretch above it — instinctively pines after — a 
home! She was real! Holding her hand, you felt something; 
a tender something ; a substance, and a warm one ; and so 
long as you feel its grasp, soft as it was, you might be 

3 



TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS 183 

certain that your place was good in the whole sympathetic 
chain of human nature. The world was no longer a delu- 
sion." Hawthorne here makes "manners" not only religious, 
but evangelistic and sacramental. Phcebe is an ideal imper- 
sonation of the Christlike soul. 

IV. Can These Things Be Taught? 

There are those who regard good morals and winsome 
manners as a rare personal endowment, but no more to 
be had by any other means than complexion or stature. 
But the germs of these qualities exist in all. They are a 
part of the universal endowment, and the right kind of 
culture will enable them to develop. The right kind is not 
the violent kind, of course. 

Bud, four years old, and his older sister, Ethel, were play- 
ing together. When a plaything was needed, Ethel said, 
"Bud, you go down-stairs and get it." The young man hesi- 
tated and looked as if he were thinking, "You might have 
said please." "But Bud, you must. I am the mother, and 
I am the oldest." The little chap straightened himself up, 
stamped his small foot, and said, "Well, Ethel, if I must, 
/ won't!' This principle of our common nature the teacher 
of morals will never lose sight of. 

More can be done here by indirection than by direct and 
avowed methods. We might say to a lively group of seniors, 
"Come here and we will teach you to behave yourselves," but 
can we imagine them coming on such a call? As to the possi- 
bilities, in general, of overcoming the disadvantages of birth 
and early neglect by appealing to this latent goodness, we may 
notice the successful work being done in settlements and mis- 
sions everywhere. An instance would be a report of the free 
kindergarten of San Francisco, where, of nine thousand chil- 
dren taken from the criminal and poverty-stricken quarters 
of the city and cared for by the Golden Gate Association, 
"but one was found to have been arrested, after careful 
inquiry and years of watchfulness over police court, prison, 

3 



184 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

and house of refuge records." We are not to expect as 
much plasticity in seniors as they found in little children, 
but neither are we expecting to begin this work with the 
seniors. What we are to note is, that the senior is still in 
the plastic stage, and hence a proper subject of our skill. 

i. Use the Bible. This is common, but not common- 
place. The Bible is the great text-book of morals and man- 
ners, apart from all considerations of its origin and religious 
uses. Its precepts shine down the ages with the 
Value of steady light of stars. They have not been dis- 

to the End turbed a jot in the midst of the ongoings of all 
things else. They are pure, lofty, serene, and 
compelling. The men and women of the Bible are unique 
as teaching subjects because of their clearness, their repre- 
sentative characters, and the moral coloring of their por- 
traiture. The songs and exhortations and prayers of the 
Bible are precious for the building and refinement of per- 
sonal character. 

Charles A. Dana, the distinguished editor of the New York 
Sun, was addressing the students of Union College a few 
years ago on the profession of journalism. He said: "Al- 
most all books are useful, a few are indispensable; of all 
these the Bible is the most useful, the most effective, the 
most indispensable. And I am considering it now, not as 
a religious Book, but as a manual of utility or professional 
preparation and professional use for a journalist." At an- 
other time he was asked what single book he would recom- 
mend for study to a young man who was just starting out 
ki a business life. He answered that he knew of no single 
book as good for such use as the Book of Proverbs. 

There ctre some people left who do not like the idea of 
using the Bible as a text-book: it is too high and holy for 
this, and should not be handled as familiarly as this use 
implies. It should not be kept on the shelf with other books. 
It should be read on Sundays and religious occasions, and 
in a holy tone. It should be expounded by the clergy, ac- 



TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS 185 

cording to rules of interpretation made exclusively for itself. 
"This mode of isolation/' says Dr. W. L. Hervey, "has borne 
its proper fruit. Led or forced to simulate emotions they 
had not time to come by honestly, the children brought up 
on that theory developed an attitude toward the Bible which 
was partly aversion, partly apathy, and which was wholly 
unreal. I know of one girl reared in a Christian home who 
did not lack intelligence in other lines, who reached the 
ripe age of thirteen before she realized that the doings re- 
corded in the Bible occurred on this earth, she having all 
along thought that they had transpired in heaven.'* 

What we lose in thus isolating the sacred Scriptures may 
be inferred from this, by G. Stanley Hall: "It does seem 
to me that the Bible, certainly the most consummate text- 
book in psychology that the world has ever seen, not only 
knows and touches the human heart at more points than any 
other, but that the order of the books, in the main, is the 
most pedagogic." 

2. Study the disposition and the teachings of Jesus. 
His was the indescribable, the matchless charm that once 
for all glorified humanity. It would be easy to imagine the 
principal trait of the King of kings as majesty 
The Moral or S pi en j or • b u t ft was neither of these. It was 
Jesus a P urer y moral trait, a personal charm that won 

all beholders and melted all hearts. This made 
it possible for men to know that gentleness is stronger than 
strength, and that mercy "becomes the throned monarch better 
than his crown." Shakespeare's poetry is the Master's prose. 
It is an elementary part of the divine revelation. His prin- 
ciple was the bringing of the life of God into human hearts. 
This worked out in all religious exercises and in those moral 
virtues and charms of disposition which are their normal 
expression. 

Jesus made so much of "good works" that they seem to 
fill His whole thought. He constantly interpreted religion 
in terms of character and good deeds. "This do and thou 



186 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

shalt live," He said to the lawyer. He told us that when 
He should come again in the glory of His Father with His 
angels He would "render unto every man according to his 
deeds." "Depart, ye cursed, into the eternal fire/' will be 
said to those who have failed to act as Christians should, 
while those who will hear the "Come, ye blessed of My 
Father," will be those who have done the deeds that He 
taught by precept and example. The immortal Beatitudes 
are but specifications of the things that delight and win and 
control in human souls. The "white robes" that characterize 
the saved, in Revelation, are "the righteous acts of the 
saints," which is according to the Master. Here also we 
read that books are opened at the judgment, and that we 
are to be "judged out of the things which are written in 
the books," according to our works. The white robes are 
"washed in the blood of the Lamb," but the washing is done 
by the saints themselves : "Blessed are they that wash their 
robes, that they may have the right to come to the tree of 
life." 

3. Biographical examples. Here is a field so rich, so 
interesting, and so effective that we do not know how to 
do it justice in a paragraph. But fortunately we have all 
been familiar with the stories of men and women, 
other Lines g rea t and small, good and bad, high and low, 
and Power selfish and devoted. The Bible characters, as 
well as the great commanding figures of history, 
we have known intimately from childhood, and we have 
carried their influence with us. 

An interesting experiment in this method was once tried 
in a school in New York which was composed of about a 
hundred boys, most of whom had been expelled from Sun- 
day-schools as incorrigible. A friend of the teacher had 
offered prizes for those boys who could report a certain 
number of good or kind or noble deeds which they had 
themselves witnessed or heard or read about, either at the 
present time or in past history. The object was, first, to see 



TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS 187 

what constituted a truly brave and noble action in the minds 
of the boys, and, second, to "train them not to find it in 
warlike or showy deeds, but in acts of loving self-sacrifice 
often never known or recognized, in little ways of kindness 
or self-denial." The Century Magazine, which told the story, 
reported the success of the method to be extraordinary. The 
teacher said, "I gained a valuable knowledge of boy life and 
boys' needs that I never dreamed of before." When the time 
for the reading of these records came the interest was intense. 
To the surprise of the teacher the first prize, a good watch, 
fell to a boy who the previous year was taken by the sexton 
by the scruff of the neck — a ragged, barefooted boy — and 
landed off the church grounds, and told never to come back, 
It was found that the collection and narration of these deeds 
had aroused into activity the better nature of the boys, as was 
made evident by their quaint moral reflections and exhorta- 
tions interspersed and appended. 

4. The use of ideals. In these ways there will grow up 
in the mind of the pupil a number of moral ideals : honesty, 
purity, sympathy, generosity, tenderness, usefulness, and the 
rest. The skillful teacher may place these, and foster and en- 
rich them, and see to it that they have their normal exercise 
upon the growing soul. These operate upon the intellect, but 
most upon the feelings, and the feelings are basal in charac- 
ter building. Dr. W. H. Payne says : "At least the half, and 
perhaps the better half, of education consists in the formation 
of right feelings. He who teaches us to look out upon the 
world through eyes of affection, sympathy, charity, and good 
will has done more for us and for society than he who may 
have taught us the seven arts." Thomas Davidson defines 
education, in the widest sense, "as the upbuilding of a world 
in feeling or in consciousness." 

5. The teacher himself. We are quite familiar with the 
maxim that the teacher teaches mostly by what he is, 
whether he will or no. This is often referred to as a respon- 
sibility and a burden, but it is also a privilege and a joy. 



188 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

Daniel Webster said that he could answer the arguments of 
all the theologians he had ever known, but he could not an- 
swer the argument of the Christian living of an 

of Godliness °^ aunt °^ ^ s U P * n ^ e ^ ew H am P s hire hills. 
The saintly Fenelon had an atheist as a guest, 
to whom he addressed no word of solicitation ; but when the 
guest went away he said, "If I stay here much longer I shall 
become a Christian in spite of myself." Dr. Chalmers de- 
clared that "there is an energy of moral suasion in a good 
man's life surpassing the highest efforts of the orator's genius. 
The seen beauty of holiness speaks more eloquently of God 
and duty than the tongues of men and of angels." 

Thomas C. Clark tells of a bar of steel, eight feet long and 
weighing five hundred pounds, in a certain gun factory, which 
was suspended vertically by a delicate chain. Near by it was 
a common cork, suspended by a silk thread. It was done to 
show that the cork could set the heavy bar in motion. This 
seemed impossible. The cork was swung gently against the 
bar, but it remained motionless. But the swinging was kept 
up for ten minutes, and lo, at the end of that time the bar 
gave evidence of being uncomfortable; a sort of nervous chill 
ran over it. Ten minutes later, and the chill was followed 
by a vibration. At the end of half an hour the great bar was 
swinging like the pendulum of a clock. 

The teacher has a point of vantage with the pupil, by vir- 
tue of his nearness to him. However hard and refractory the 
latter's nature may seem, it can not resist very long the gentle 
influences that fall upon him from a loving soul. The larg- 
est and brightest and strongest lesson in morals and manners 
is the teacher himself. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The Same Subject Continued. 
II. The Moral Life. 
III. Manners. 



TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS 189 

IV. Can These Things be Taught? 

1. Use the Bible. 

2. Study the Master. 

3. Biographical examples. 

4. The use of ideals. 

5. The teacher himself. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. The Bible as an ethical text-book. 

2. The power of ideals in moral education. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. What is the difference between religion and morals? 

2. What is the evil of separating morals and religion? 

3. What place has morals in the Word of God? 

4. Is personal charm for everybody? 

5. What use is to be made of ideals? 

6. What of the teacher's example? 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR 
TRAINING 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 

I. The Filial Sense 

The heart of Christian piety is the filial sense. There are 
many conceptions and definitions of the Christian life, with 
many varied appeals and testimonies. There is often a sad 
confusion upon a great question which should be made clear 
The Sense at ^ e outset - The y°uth is urged to "give your 
of Sonship heart to God," to "seek salvation," to "come to 
the Heart of Jesus," to "get under the blood," to "venture out 
L i f e ChriStlan on the Promises," to "cling to the Cross," to 
"take hold of Christ by faith," and to do many 
other things. Of course all these figures of speech have ref- 
erence to the same act, but they are often cloudy and confus- 
ing metaphors to the youth inexperienced in spiritual things. 
After he has received conscious pardon from God he is trou- 
bled at times to know just where the center of his spiritual 
life is, and what he should cherish as the fundamental and 
unchangeable thing in it. 

This may be described as the sense of sonship with God. 
To be a Christian is to be consciously a child of God. It is 
for this that the soul is regenerated, and to this the Spirit 
bears the inward witness. Our Lord used this as the highest 
inducement for His disciples to do the hard things of the 
Christian life, such as loving their enemies. He urged this, 
"that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." He 
urged perfection upon them and us for the same reason. 

II. The Fraternal Sense 

But to be a son of God is to be a brother of all His other 
children. We can not have God for our Father and disown 

13 I93 3 



194 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

the rest of the family. The moment we come into the new 
relation with the Father we come into a new relation with 
men. This is fundamental and characteristic Christianity. 
To be a Son ^ Christians have been slow to accept this it by 
of God is to no means discredits its truth. If they have 
be a Brother placed most of the emphasis upon their own 
of Men "adoption and assurance," it does not undo the 

bonds that Jesus Christ took infinite pains to secure. The 
brotherhood of man goes with the Fatherhood of God. 

A story is told of a tramp who asked food of a good 
deacon one Sunday morning. "Yes," said the deacon, "I will 
give you something to eat, if you will offer a prayer." "But 
I do n't know how to pray," said the tramp. "Well," said 
the deacon, "I will teach you. Just repeat after me," and he 
began the Lord's Prayer, in the first words of which the 
tramp meekly followed him. But he interrupted with the 
question, "Whose Father is that?" "Why — I suppose — of all 
of us," said the deacon. "Yours and mine, too?" asked the 
aroused tramp. "Why — yes — I suppose so," said the deacon. 
"Well, then," said the tramp, "if that is so, do n't you think 
for the sake of the family that you could cut that slice of 
bread a little thicker?" 

This is bed-rock Christian theology. There is nothing 
deeper than this. Whatever else may be modified in the 
changes of time, the brotherhood of man will survive as long 
as Christianity lives and remembers Christ. 

III. The Social Sense 

Here we find the prevailing response of the adolescent na- 
ture to Christian appeals. The saving faith that the youth 
exercises finds its expression in fraternal and 
The Social social modes. The social is only a phase of the 
of Religion fraternal. The relation of brotherhood is the 
soil from which friendship grows, and which se- 
cures its identity and its persistence. 

Adults are often solicitous about the reality of the religion 



SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 195 

of youth because it does not express itself like that of older 
people. Young people are not mournful very long at a time, 
even for their sins. They do not sigh and groan over their 
wickedness to any great extent, and they do not shout in 
ecstasy when God forgives them. They do not interpret their 
Christian experience either in terms of deep despondency 
or of high exultation. They are not likely to weep in 
telling their experience, nor to be very fierce in talk- 
ing about sin, and inviting sinners to Christ. A large 
volume of the hymnology of the prayer-meeting is unreal 
to them, and they do not choose it. They will sing "I 
want to be an angel," when they are children, because we ask 
them to do so, but when they are older they do not care to 
voice such an untruth even in song. Neither do they like to 
sing, 

"Can my God His wrath forbear, 
Me, the chief of sinners, spare?" 

for the same good reason. They are also disinclined to sing 
about old age, and infirmities, and afflictions, and death. They 
are not introspective, and do not dwell upon the rising and 
falling tides of their own feelings. No wonder that the older 
people, who have forgotten how it feels to be young and re- 
gard all people as of one type, fail to recognize religion as it 
expresses itself in young Christians. 

But it is there, in its very essence, if it holds the funda- 
mentals. If the youth loves God with all his heart, and his 
neighbor as himself, he is a Christian according to Christ. 
If he knows that God is his Father, and counts his fellow-men 
as brothers, he is a genuine believer. It may not be his fault 
if he is not understood. Perhaps the hymn-book ought to 
be made to fit him, rather than that he should be trimmed 
to fit the hymn-book. Why is it that there are so many hymns 
of the self-life and so few of the brother-life ? Why do hymns 
of sentiment abound and hymns of consecration remain 
scarce? Why do they sing so much of personal joy and so 



i 9 6 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

little of service? Is it any wonder that the good old hymn, 
"A Charge to Keep I Have," repels young people by its first 
verse? They are temperamentally unable to comprehend it as 
the highest religious aspiration to save their own soul, and to 
"fit it for the sky." Bishop Janes had the same difficulty, and 
he changed one word, and sang it: 

"A charge to keep I have, 

A God to glorify, 
A never-dying world to save, 
And fit it for the sky." 

This changes the whole horizon, and makes religion a dedica- 
tion of self to the world's salvation, rather than a selfish ab- 
sorption in one's own soul's interests. Young people do not 
live alone, and they do not care to be saved alone. And they 
have a healthy trust in their Heavenly Father which keeps 
them from fear of death and hell while they are active in the 
service of their Elder Brother. 

IV, The Social Awakening 

One of the most characteristic and interesting phenomena 
of adolescence is the awakening, or at least the amplification, 
of the social instincts. We have met this before, and now 
recur to it in the study of the religious culture 
The Youth's £ voun g people. In the later teens the youth 
of Humanity ^ e ^ ms to realize as never before that he is in a 
world of people, and this not as a pebble on the 
beach but as a related person. The world is not a hetero- 
geneous mass, but a society whose members are "one of an- 
other." The adolescent thus finds himself; for this new con- 
ception of humanity transfigures him. It makes a prodigious 
difference to him if he is no longer an isolated unit but a 
member of society, linked in with the rest. 

When he comes to realize this more and more by constant 
observation and study, he feels himself enlarging to fit the 
dimensions of his conception. Sometimes he can see himself 

3 



SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 197 

growing from one day to another. He is almost bewildered 
by the suddenness of the transition. His juvenility is falling 
from him like a garment. His old notions are shrinking, and 
fading, and drifting into the past like fleecy clouds. His 
standpoint is so changed that an entire new outfit of ideals 
must be set up. He rises so high and so swiftly that the en- 
larging panorama of life exhilarates him — and he sees men 
and women everywhere. His horoscope is no longer cast 
upon his exclusive personality, for he sees clearly now that his 
future will be but a function of the lives of all he meets with 
or knows about. He will stand by his own loom, but others 
will throw in their shuttles from time to time, and the web 
will contain hues that will not be of his own weaving. A sun 
has arisen upon his horizon, and in its golden light his fellow- 
men stand newly revealed to him. Henceforth he must know 
them, and walk with them, and love and serve them. The 
youth has discovered humanity. 

V. The Social Age of Man 

Another item of importance to us here is the social awak- 
ening of humanity itself. If "the recapitulation theory'' is 
true, and the growing human being reproduces in his life all 

the stages of growth through which the race has 
The Social passed, it may be true that there is another reflec- 
onHumanity ^ on ^y which the race may be read in the light of 

the individual. According to this the race would 
now be adolescent, because it is manifesting many of the 
peculiarities of youth. However this may be, it is certain that 
there is a social awakening taking place more marked, and 
more momentous, than the race has ever known. 

Professor Francis G. Peabody states that "the most char- 
acteristic and significant discovery of the present age is the 
discover)' of the social conscience/' And again, "There is not 
only given to our age a mission, but there is added a distinct 
consciousness of that mission. We do not have to wait for 
the philosophical historian of some remote future to discern 



ig8 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

the characteristic problem of the present time. Behind the 
extraordinary achievements of modern civilization, its trans- 
formations of business methods, its miracles of scientific dis- 
covery, its mighty combinations of political forces, there lies 
at the heart of the present time a burdening sense of social 
mal-adjustment which creates what we call the social ques- 
tion. This is what gives its fundamental character to the 
present age." In many varied, and often unreasonable and 
extravagant, ways the characteristic emotion of the time ex- 
presses itself. It is the age of the social question. Never 
were so many people, learned and ignorant, rich and poor, 
philosophers and agitators, men and women, so stirred by 
this recognition of inequality in social opportunity by the call 
to social service, by dreams of a better social world. 

We have seen why we should not expect to find in our 
youth the religious reactions that are manifested by mature 
men and women in camp meetings and other "protracted 
meetings;" also, why we should expect to find their religion 
a normal expression of their newly evolved social nature. The 
marvelous social atmosphere of our time adds to this. The 
young, with their wide-open senses and their quick sensibili- 
ties, discern the signs of our times, and respond to them. 
The social promptings of their own hearts are congenial to 
the life of men. The youth is at home in the young world. 

VI. Our Social Christianity 

The more we study the religion of Jesus Christ the plainer 
its social character becomes. To one who has accustomed 
himself to regard Christianity as simply a remedial system, 
the conception of it as a social organization 
Gospel w ^h constructive aims is startling, and often irri- 

tating. Yet this is certainly the true conception. 
Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. He 
aimed at a reconstructed society, a world renewed in right- 
eousness. He has salvation for the individual sinner, but His 
main reliance is upon a state of things in society that will 

3 



SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 199 

prevent sin and obviate the necessity of sinners. He preached 
a social gospel, and His disciples were social workers. Phil- 
lips Brooks says: "Jesus begins with the individual. His 
first and deepest touches are upon the single soul. In the 
individual experience man's life always begins. But there 
are some things of the individual life which the individual 
can not get save in the company of fellow-men. There are 
some parts of his own true life always in his brethren's keep- 
ing, for which he must go to them. That the individual may 
find and be his own truest and fullest self, Jesus, his Master, 
leads him to his fellows." 

The same great teacher contrasts Christianity with pagan- 
ism by this striking trope : "In one of the most rich and beau- 
tiful of European galleries hangs Raphael's greatest Madonna, 
called the Madonna of St. Sixtus. Among the dreary sands 
at the edge of the Egyptian desert, under the shadow of the 
pyramids, stands the mighty sphinx, the work of unknown 
hands, so calm and so eternal in its solitude that it is hard 
to think of it as the work of human hands at all; as true a 
part of the great earth, it seems, as any mountain that pierces 
upward from its bosom. These two suggest comparisons that 
are certainly not fancies. They are the two great expressions 
in art of the two religions — the religion of the East and of 
the West. Fatalism and Providence they seem to mean. Both 
have tried to express a union of humanity with something 
which is its superior; but one has joined it only to the supe- 
rior strength of the animal, while the other has filled it with 
the superior spirituality of a divine nature. One unites wis- 
dom and power, and claims man's homage for that conjunc- 
tion. The other combines wisdom and love, and says, Wor- 
ship this.' The sphinx has life in its human face written into 
a riddle, a puzzle, a mocking bewilderment. The Virgin's 
face is full of a mystery we can not fathom, but it unfolds to 
us a thousand of the mysteries of life. It does not mock, 
but blesses us. The sphinx oppresses us with colossal size. 
The Virgin is not a distortion or an exaggeration, but a glori- 

3 



200 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

fication of humanity. The Egyptian monster is alone amid 
its sands, to be worshiped, not loved. The Christian woman 
has her child clasped in her arms, enters into the societies and 
sympathies of men, and claims no worship but love. It is in 
this last difference — the difference between the solitude of 
one and the companionship of the other — that we feel, I think, 
most distinctly how different is the Christianity of the picture 
from the sublime paganism of the statue." 

VII. Our Social Ethics 

The virtues unite people : the vices all tend to divide them. 
The virtues are social : the vices are dissocial. Virtue is con- 
structive: vice is destructive. Society, then, must cultivate 
Virtue Serves t ^ ie y i rtues ^ n order to live at all; and it must 
Society in a nght the vices for its life. The virtues need no 
Constructive defense, nor any argument beyond this prime fact 
ay of their operation. There is power in this basal 

contrast to win the devotion of young people to the virtues. 
There was once a young man just about to graduate from 
college, to whom this putting of the inherent social quality of 
the virtues came like a shock. He said: "I never thought 
of this before. It was a great argument, and one that ex- 
horted me powerfully for thirty years." 

VIII. Training to Type 

After we have before us the type of normal youth there is 
little to be said as to specific training, for all this should be 
in the direction of the type. It is not to be assumed that the 

religion of maturity is the only desirable type of 
The Piety of piety, nor are the healthy instincts of youth to be 
High Type thwarted or repressed. The young person is to 

be encouraged to be social in his Christian life, 
and he is not to be urged to untimely emotions or testimonies. 
It is evident that the happy, hopeful, trusting spirit of youth 
is a part of the Christian ideal that is never to be allowed 
to wane. The coldness and the pessimism of later life is not 



SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 201 

a natural following of the warmth of youth. It is rather a 
degeneration. The little child likes to play alone, and when 
he grows older he plays for himself, even with others. He 
has not yet come to the time when he plays not only with oth- 
ers, but for them. The old man who is living for himself, 
though under a Christian profession, has sunk back to child- 
hood. He has reverted to type. The crying need of the 
Church and the world as well is for such training of the so- 
cial instincts of youth as will prevent this degeneration and 
carry them forward into a maturity more, rather than less, 
social and optimistic. 

IX. The Senior and His Pleasures 

The Senior should have his pleasures, for they are a part 
of his life. He should mingle frequently and freely with his 
companions. The sexes are not to be kept apart, but they 

are to be so taught that their association will be 
Youthful innocent while it is pleasurable and educative. 

Necessary These social gatherings should not be left to 

chance. Sympathetic elders may help the young 
people much by their experience, and they may be sure that 
this will be welcomed by the young, if it is proffered aright. 
The Sunday-school teacher will find that there are few things 
that he can study to more advantage than the social culture 
of his pupils. He will make a mistake if he attempts to dic- 
tate to them what they shall do or where they shall go or not 
go, but he can get so near to them and dwell with them on 
terms so intimate that he can exert a good influence over 
them. If the pupil desires a comprehensive test for his pleas- 
ures, no better can be found than that which Mother Wesley 
wrote to her son John when a youth in college : "Would you 
judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a pleasure, take 
this rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the ten- 
derness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or 
takes off the relish of spiritual things ; whatever increases the 
authority of your body over your mind — that thing, to you, 



202 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

is sin." If he asks for a test for his amusements, the general 
rule of the Methodist Episcopal Church which directs its mem- 
bers to avoid "the taking of such diversions as can not be 
used in the name of the Lord Jesus," is admirable. But the 
decision in all cases is with the individual. Freedom of con- 
science is one of the corner-stones of Protestantism, and this 
is always to be maintained. The individual makes his decision 
and takes the responsibility. 

X. The Beginning of Service 

As the new social life opens in the heart of the youth he 
finds his teacher ready with the one perfect social religion to 
instruct and to guide him. It rejoices with him in his inno- 
The Religion cent pl easur es, and offers him a great variety 
of Christ of classes and societies and companionships in 

Beckons which he may pass from mere enjoyment to a 

Him on fruitful social service, wherein he will develop 

into full self-realization in helping others. The Spirit of 
Christ inspires him, and his Father's smile is his reward. 



Lesson Outline: 


I. 


The Filial Sense. 


II. 


The Fraternal Sense. 


III. 


The Social Sense. 


IV. 


The Social Awakening. 


V. 


The Social Age of Man. 


VI. 


Our Social Christianity. 


VII. 


Our Social Ethics. 


VIII. 


Training to Type. 


IX. 


The Senior and His Pleasures 


X. 


The Beginning of Service. 



Topics for Special Study: 

i. Appropriate religious exercises for young people. 
2. The social teachings of Jesus. 

3 



SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 203 

Topics for Class' Discussion: 

1. What is the essence of a Christian experience? 

2. What is involved in being a child of God? 

3. Describe the typical young man. 

4. Is there such a thing as the selfish seeking of sal- 

vation ? 

5. How is Christianity a social religion? 

6. How are the vices anti-social? 

7. Should the adult be more social, or less, than the 

youth ? 

8. The social advantages of the Church. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE SENIOR'S WORLD 



CHAPTER XV 
THE SENIOR'S WORLD 

I. The Christian Motive 

It may be that some have missed a note of emphasis upon 
the joy of pardoned sin as the great inducement offered to the 
young for coming to Christ. Frankly, we do not consider 
this the supreme inducement. It is scarcely the 
The Supreme Christian motive at all, but rather one of its in- 
Service cidents. The Christian according to Christ is 

not engrossed with his emotions, but with higher 
things. "And can there be any higher things?" Most cer- 
tainly, there can. It is not hard to ascertain what Jesus was 
most solicitous for, and when we find that we need look no 
farther for the highest and worthiest Christian motive. With 
Him it is consecration, service, sacrifice. "Go ye also into 
the vineyard," might be taken as His generic command. 
"Even so let your light shine before men ; that they may see 
your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven," 
is another characteristic precept. How is the Father glori- 
fied? "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much 
fruit; and so shall ye be My disciples." 

It is a capital task of the teacher to win his pupils to 
Christ, and so to do this that they will not tire of their re- 
ligion after a time, but go on to higher levels as long as 
they live. This is done by inspiring these young people with 
the noblest ambitions. A valuable aid in this task is the 
study of the new world into which the Seniors are entering. 

207 3 



208 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

II. The Inspiration of Opportunity 

Tennyson said that fifty years of Europe was better than 
a cycle of China. This was because of the opportunities that 
Europe offered and that China lacked. One of the strongest 
motives to enterprise and achievement in the life of the race 
has been opportunity; perhaps it has been the strongest of all. 
What is the difference between being born in a 
Opportunity Greenland igloo and a Massachusetts home? 
Achievement Much more than the difference of temperature. 
What shines before the Greenland boy as he 
grows toward manhood? Not much more than the aurora 
borealis. His future must perforce be narrow and lean, with 
a life of drudgery and suffering all along. But the American 
youth looks out upon a future filled with the promise of per- 
sonal comfort and luxury, with ten thousand possibilities of 
prosperity, and some, perhaps, of greatness. We are too well 
accustomed to our own privileges to be able to value them 
adequately, but it is certain that in no nation of all the na- 
tions, and in no century of all the centuries, has there been so 
much placed before young people as in our own country 
and age. 

Professor Bryce says : "The institutions of the United 
States are deemed by inhabitants and admitted by strangers 
to be a matter of more general interest than those of the not 
less famous nations of the Old World. They represent an 
experiment in the rule of the multitude, tried on a scale un- 
precedentedly vast, and the result of which every one is con- 
cerned to watch. And yet they are something more than an 
experiment, for they are believed to disclose and display the 
type of institutions towards which, as by the law of fate, the 
rest of civilized mankind are forced to move; some with 
swifter, others with slower, but all with unresting feet." Our 
young people belong to this favored land, and are to have a 
share in the outworking of this mighty experiment. They 
are entitled to the inspiration that comes from a clear view of 



THE SENIOR'S WORLD 209 

this wide and glowing horizon. "Lift up your eyes and look 
on the fields." 

The great seal of the United States is a symbol of this 
inspiration, with a prophecy. The design on its reverse side 
is a pyramid, which is unfinished and truncated. Over it is an 
eye. The pyramid, which is of all geometrical figures the 
most stable, represents our country, and the eye is the Provi- 
dence of God. There are two mottoes, which may be thus 
translated: "God favors our enterprise/' and "A new era in 
the centuries." This seal might well be impressed upon the 
heart of every young American. It is his unparalleled privi- 
lege to march into manhood with the conviction that his life's 
day is allotted him in the beginning of this grand era, and 
that the favor of God is upon his country and himself. Every 
field is open to him ; every sky bends propitious ; every star 
shines for him; the birds are singing the harmonies of na- 
ture; "winds blow and waters roll strength to the brave." 

III. Our National Birthright 

Said Emerson : "We live in a new and exceptional age. 
America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history 
appears like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf 

of the human race." This is not the mere froth 
The New f patriotism. Consider the location of the Uni- 
the West te< ^ States, in the midst of the north temperate 

zone, and extending from ocean to ocean. Con- 
sider its vast and varied products, and its unrivaled resources 
of every kind. Notice its position in the path of the slow- 
moving but mighty world movement of populations. Says Dr. 
Strong: "Since prehistoric times populations have moved 
steadily westward, as DeTocqueville said, 'as if driven by the 
mighty hand of God.' And following their migrations the 
course of empire has taken its way. The world's scepter 
passed from Persia to Greece, from Greece to Italy, from Italy 
to Great Britain, and from Great Britain the scepter is to-day 
departing. It is passing on to 'Greater Britain,' to our 

i 4 « 



210 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

mighty West, there to remain, for there is no further West; 
beyond is the Orient. Like the star in the East which guided 
the three kings with their treasures Westward until at length 
it stood still over the cradle of the young Christ, so the star 
of empire, rising in the East, has ever beckoned the wealth 
and power of the nations Westward, until to-day it stands 
still over the cradle of the young empire of the West, to which 
the nations are bringing their offerings." 

It is thought that the coming census will show nearly ninety 
millions of people in this country. In 1790, which was 
long after the Revolutionary War, there were but 3,929,214, 
which is less than the population of the city of New York 
to-day. The world never saw such growth as this, and it bids 
fair to go on with greater rapidity in the future. The immi- 
gration in 1909 reached the enormous total of 751,786. 
Though this is admittedly a source of peril, it is a national 
advantage of the first magnitude. And there is an untold 
benefit to the American race from the admixture of the vari- 
ous strains of blood from the different races of Europe. Our 
American blood is a new complex of English, Dutch, Irish, 
German, Norse, and others, which scientists tell us increases 
the virility and versatility of the men of the New World. 
Something has evidently freshened the blood and quickened 
the life of those who have come to this favored land. Refer- 
ring to what Americans have accomplished, Sir Henry M. 
Stanley says : "Treble their number of ordinary Europeans 
could not have surpassed them in what they have done. The 
story of their achievements reads like an epic of the heroic 
age." 

No other country has a territory comparable to our own. 
It is hard for us to realize its vastness. It is 1,600 miles 
long, and 2,720 miles wide. Its area is 3,618,484 
Territory square miles. It has high mountains, broad 
prairies, great rivers, and fine harbors. It has 
2 36,949 miles of railway, and the railroads carried nearly 
874,000,000 passengers last year. Its wealth is over $107,000,- 

3 



THE SENIOR'S WORLD 211 

000,000, which allows an average of $1,310.11 to each inhabit- 
ant. We have over eight billions of dollars deposited in our 
banks. These figures are too large to convey much meaning. 
Let us help them out with the candy bill of the country. Per- 
haps that will give us a better idea of our wealth. This ex- 
penditure was $500,000,000 last year, which would pay our 
enormous pension bill in four months, or dig the Panama 
Canal in nine months, or pay the entire National debt in 
five years. 

Our climate is incomparable, and climate is one of the 
first considerations in national prosperity. An eminent sci- 
entist says that easterly winds either hug the earth or have 
an upward component of motion. Gathering the 

Climate ^ ust an( ^ ^ e b acter i a tnev become foul winds, 

under which animal life is enervated and ren- 
dered susceptible to disease. But the converse is true of the 
northwest winds, which prevail in the United States. They 
sweep down from above, coming from the regions where the 
air is cool and dry, highly electrified, and filled with ozone. 
They bring physical energy and buoyancy in their mighty 
breath. He believes that these west winds have much to do 
with the formation of the American character. The race that 
is now coming to be known as American has fertility of 
thought and energy of body. Without doubt the climate has 
much to do with the genesis of the "indomitable spirit that is 
reaching out for the mastery of the earth." 

A number of years ago Arnold Guyot startled and 
charmed the educational world by his unique contributions to 
historical geography. His thesis was that the three conti- 
nents of the North are organized for the development of man, 
and therefore have been pre-eminently the historical conti- 
nents; also, that the entire physical creation corresponds to 
the moral creation, and is only to be explained by it. "Asia, 
Europe, and North America are the grand stages of humanity 
in its march through the ages. Asia is the cradle where man 
passed his infancy, under the authority of law, and where he 



212 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

learned his dependence upon a sovereign master. Europe is 
the school where his youth was trained, where he waxed in 
strength and knowledge, grew to manhood, and learned at 
once his liberty and his moral responsibility. America is the 
theater of his activity during the period of manhood ; the land 
where he applies and practices all that he has learned, brings 
into action all the forces he has acquired, and where he is 
still to learn that the entire development of his being and his 
own happiness are possible only by willing obedience to the 
laws of his Maker. Thus lives and prospers, under the pro- 
tection of the Divine Husbandman, the -great tree of humanity, 
which is to overshadow the whole earth. It germinates and 
sends up its strong trunk in the ancient land of Asia. Grafted 
with a nobler stalk, it shoots out new branches, it blossoms in 
Europe. In America only it seems destined to bear all its 
fruits. In these three we behold at once, as in a vast picture, 
the past, the present, and the future.'' 

Our age is a new age in respect to the marvelous growth 
of the arts and sciences. This alone would make life a privi- 
lege in any civilized land. It is said that the English Govern- 
ment issued more patents during the twenty 
industries years following 1850 than during the two hundred 
and fifty years preceding. But the United States 
issues four times as many patents as the English Government. 
Before the close of the last century the supremacy of our 
country in manufactures was recognized. Prior to that it 
had been first in agriculture, producing one-third of the food 
supply of the world, with but one-twentieth of the population. 
We are now selling our products everywhere. The exports 
of last year were valued at over a billion and a half of dollars, 
and they are increasing all the time. 

Our locomotives are found in China, Japan, Russia, all the 
South American countries, in Spain, Italy, France, and even 
in England. Dr. Strong tells of an Englishman who had a 
contract to furnish locomotives for a Chinese railway. He 
furnished American engines because he could get them in 

s 



THE SENIOR'S WORLD 213 

four and one-half months at $9,250 each, while English en- 
gines would have cost him $14,000, with a wait of two years 
for delivery. Our steel rails and our bridges are sold all 
over the world. A Burmah railway invited six English and 
two American companies to make bids for a bridge. The best 
English offer was for nearly $600,000, with three years' time. 
An American firm contracted to complete the work in one 
year for about $300,000. The Kimberley diamond mines in 
South Africa, the largest in the world, use American machin- 
ery almost exclusively, because, as the managers say, it is 
cheaper, and it works better. When the city of Glasgow was 
equipping its municipal street car lines the authorities gave 
the contracts to American manufacturers. These amounted 
to $15,000,000. 

These are but hasty items of a vast aggregate. Dr. Strong, 
who treats the subject at length in "Expansion," concludes 
that our manufacturing supremacy is likely to be permanent 
in the world, for these five considerations : we have the coal, 
our supply being several times that of all Europe, our coal 
area being twenty-one times the area of all the coal fields of 
Great Britain. "If all England, Scotland, and Wales were 
one solid bed of coal, that would not equal one-half of our 
supplies as yet untouched." Secondly, we have the iron, not 
only in the Eastern States, but not a State west of the Missis- 
sippi is without it. As to our production, while in i860 it 
was only 821,000 tons of pig iron, in 1908 it was over sixteen 
millions of tons of pig iron, and over fourteen millions of 
tons of steel, which is about one-third the total amount pro- 
duced in the whole world. 

A third condition is low labor cost, due to American ac- 
tivity and machinery. A few years ago a German expert was 
sent to Massachusetts to examine the shoe industry. He re- 
ported that he found the average wages of the workers to be 
$15 a week, and the average labor cost of a pair of shoes to 
be forty cents ; while similar workmen in Germany received 
$4 a week, and the labor cost of shoes was fifty-eight cents. 

3 



2i 4 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

The German wage was thus 45% more expensive. Watch- 
making in Japan is reported to be unprofitable in spite of the 
fact that Japanese wages are only twenty-five cents a day, as 
against $3 a day paid to our workmen. 

The other two conditions are the abundance of raw ma- 
terials, and the accessibility to the world's markets. Many 
years ago Gladstone made a prophecy about us which is being 
fulfilled now : "The United States will probably become 
what we are now, the head servant in the great household 
of the world, the employer of all employed, because her serv- 
ice will be the most and the ablest." 

IV. The New Life of Knowledge 

Our age is the age of invention and of general intelligence. 
Science has developed the arts that furnish our living more 
than any words can detail. Remember, for instance, the dull 
monotony of the millenniums through which the primitive 
methods of making spinning yarn out of wool and flax con- 
tinued. These were in use in our homes as late as the out- 
break of the Revolutionary War. The spindle and the distaff 
used by the daughters of Abraham and Moses were like those 
in our own homes till lately. Now consider the volume of 
machine-woven fabrics. It is said that there was not an iron 
plow in the world ninety years ago. Consider the steam 
plows of to-day, and with them the seed-drills and the com- 
bined harvesters. Give but a swift glance at the thousands of 
other inventions that have revolutionized our outward living; 
at the electric motors, and automobiles, and aeroplanes, and 
telephones, and wireless telegraphs. Men now talk from Balti- 
more to Chicago, and from one side of the Atlantic to the 
other by wireless telegraph; and this statement will doubtless 
be out of date before it is printed. In our homes we have 
fireless cookers, and electric lights, electrical stoves, brooms, 
flat-irons, and washing machines. We have long distance 
telephones, and talking-machines, and automatic music. When 
we travel we go swiftly and comfortably in steam cars or 






THE SENIOR'S WORLD 215 

trolleys or luxurious boats. We soar through the air by great 
bridges, and burrow through mountains and under waters by 
tunnels. 

We write letters everywhere, the whole world being one 
in the postal union. There are 60,144 post-offices in this coun- 
try, with two-cent postage everywhere within it, and to Great 
Britain and Germany without. There are 22,603 newspapers 
published here, and great numbers of books. One cent buys 
a wonder of a daily paper, and the best of books are to be 
had at low prices. The cost of a Bible, with commentary, 
was from $150 to $250 in the year 1274, though in 1240 two 
arches of London bridge were built for $125. In 1272 the 
wages of a laboring man were less than four cents a day. At 
this time the price of a Bible was about $180. At that rate a 
laborer must toil for thirteen years to earn enough to possess 
a copy of the Scriptures. 

The science of medicine has been revolutionized so that 
we are now looking forward to the entire abolition of disease. 
Antisepsis, skin-grafting, and blood transfusion are the com- 
mon-places of medical practice. We have seen the death 
rate from tuberculosis reduced 49% since 1880, and millions 
of money are spent in fighting it. In the same period we have 
seen typhoid fever lose 44% of its death rate, and diphtheria 
80%. The death rate from diphtheria was reduced more than 
half in the ten years from 1890 to 1900. The triumphs of an- 
tiseptic surgery are too numerous and marvelous to compre- 
hend. 

We have over 17,000,000 of pupils in our common schools, 
taught by almost half a million teachers. These schools are 
free to all, and besides these there are high schools, business, 
normal, music, and many other schools, and hundreds of col- 
leges. Any one who will may be educated in this great coun- 
try, and multitudes are securing college education who are 
without money or moneyed friends. Our scholars and au- 
thors and statesmen and other leaders are coming freely from 
the common ranks, and the world wonders. 

3 



216 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

V. Inspiration and Interest 

All these considerations are but a scattering few of the 
great number that the teacher may use. Seniors are never 
indifferent to descriptions of the world that is beckoning them, 
and their teacher can not afford to be indifferent to it. It 
furnishes him with one of his most effective appeals, and is 

as interesting as it is inspiring. The live teacher 
with Power makes a constant study of current events, and 

generally gathers and sorts newspaper clippings 
for class use. They never fail to arouse interest, and they 
enhance respect for the teacher as well; for seniors are 
peculiarly appreciative of men and things that are "up to 
date." Many a teacher has found the newspaper a valuable 
commentary on the Bible with his class, and has thereby 
solved most of his class problems at once. 

A high destiny held before young people generally charms 
them. That teacher who knows how to make them under- 
stand that they are the heirs of all the bygone ages, and that 
they are standing "in the foremost files of time," can com- 
mand them. The question that thrilled that princess among 
adolescents, the Jewish Esther, "Who knoweth whether thou 
art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" has 
thrilled many another adolescent when the glories of the 
coming kingdom have been unfolded before him. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The Christian Motive. 
II. The Inspiration of Opportunity. 

III. Our National Birthright. 

IV. The New Life of Knowledge. 
V. Inspiration and Interest. 

Topics for Special Study: 

i. The Christian motive according to Christ. 
2. The awakening of ambition and purpose in the minds 
of great Americans as shown in their biographies. 



THE SENIOR'S WORLD 217 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. What is the proper place of the joy of pardon in 

Christian experience? 

2. Is it safe to take Christ's estimates of spiritual 

things ? 

3. Why should a teacher give attention to his pupils' 

future ? 

4. Why do opportunities differ so much in different 

countries ? 

5. What country offers the highest inducement to 

young people? 

6. What use can the teacher make of world facts? 

7. What use can the teacher make of current events? 

8. How did it happen that science blossomed so fast 

in our age? 

9. What is the highest Christian motive? 



CHAPTER XVI 

BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE 



CHAPTER XVI 
BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE 

I. Horizons of Thought and Purpose 

Marvelous as are the material and commercial expansions 
of our day, the horizons of thought and purpose have widened 
much more rapidly. The common people have come to 
think like kings. They are sitting in judgment 
Our Age ^ upon the deeds of governors and presidents and 
its ideas emperors. And these rulers are regarding the 

people closely, for the ultimate power is with 
them, and what they will they do. Men still toil, but they 
are not submerged in their labor. 

The Russian cathedral at Kiev is of great splendor. Its 
walls are covered with plaques of gold and silver. Its images 
are enshrined in richly jeweled frames of gold, and before 
them hang hundreds of tiny lamps gleaming like multicolored 
jewels. But deep down beneath this magnificent structure 
there are miles of subterranean corridors, lined with cells, 
in which fifteen hundred ascetics perform their daily devotions 
and duties. They eat, sleep, and live in the midst of the 
bones of their dead ancestors. For a short time each day they 
ramble in the beautiful gardens surrounding the cathedral, 
only to return from the fugitive glimpse of paradise to the 
dark, damp cellars where they live their death in life. The 
time was when the lives of us common folks was a good 
deal like that burial of the monks at Kiev. There was little 
of opportunity or knowledge or joy for the mass of men. 
But now all who wish may come up out of the catacombs 
into the gardens and stay there. They may live in the sun- 
light and find ennobling work to do for God and man, no 

221 3 



222 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

matter how they have to earn their daily bread. The souls 
of men have been emancipated. 

Contrast with the underground mummeries of the monks 
the experience of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, as she gave it in 
the Cosmopolitan: "To be a part of God's great universe, 
to be one of His voices, to be a worker and a helper, means 
to me the fullness of satisfaction. I expected much of life; 
it has given in all ways more than I expected. Everything 
has happened. I have known loneliness, discontent, trouble. 
I have waited years for what I felt I must obtain imme- 
diately; yet for each hour of pain I have known three hours 
of joy, and life has been good, and grows better as I walk 
forward. Love has been more loyal and lasting, friendship 
sweeter and more comprehensive, work more enjoyable, and 
fame, because of its aid to usefulness, more satisfying than 
early imagination pictured." 

That for which Jesus taught us to pray, and for which 

all Christians have prayed ceaselessly from the beginning, 

the kingdom of God, is surely coming. This 

The Coming explains the rapid enlargement of every field of 

Kingdom usefulness opening before young people, and is 

at the same time a prophecy of still greater things. 

Not long ago a Chicago church addressed these two 
questions to a number of prominent men : "Is the Spirit of 
Christ more dominant in business, politics, and international 
affairs than when you entered public life?" and "Is it an 
advantage or a disadvantage for a public man to-day to be 
known as a professing Christian?" Letters were received 
from Vice-President Sherman, Gilford Pinchot, Speaker Can- 
non, Norman Hapgood, Senator Dolliver, Governor Deneen, 
Woodrow Wilson, David Starr Jordan, and John G. Shedd. 
Their opinions were unanimous that the Spirit of Christ is a 
greater force now than formerly. 

Part of Vice-President Sherman's reply reads : "I hate 
to believe, and I do not believe, that it is a disadvantage to 
any man in any calling to be a professing Christian. My 



BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE 223 

belief, based on observation and experience, is, that even those 
who scoff, beneath that exterior have a genuine respect for 
the man who professes Christianity and leads a Christian life." 
Speaker Cannon wrote, "I believe that the world is growing 
better, and that the Spirit of the Master has more influence 
in politics and business than ever before." Senator Dolliver 
calls attention to the fact that there has been great improve- 
ment in the morals of our public men, and says that many 
of the habits of the public men of the times of Clay and 
Webster would not be tolerated now. Secretary Wilson thinks 
the great progress in the substitution of international arbi- 
tration for war is a sign of the remarkable advance of the 
Spirit of Jesus in the world. 

Lyman Abbott says : "When I entered active life half 
this nation was in slavery — it is now free; the public school 
system was confined to about half the states in the Union — 
it is now carried on in every state, with provision for black 
and white alike; the Young Men's Christian Association was 
just coming into being — it is now an organization extending 
all over the world, and everywhere acting vigorously and 
efficiently in the promotion of the Christian spirit and in 
the inculcation of Christian principles ; the home missionary 
work, the foreign missionary work, the social settlements 
in our great cities and towns have greatly increased within 
the last fifty years." 

President Woodrow Wilson writes : "It is my clear con- 
viction that Christ's teachings are making actual progress 
in the world. While it is probably true that Christianity in 
its older dogmatic forms has less hold on the people of our 
own day than it had upon those of earlier generations, the 
real Spirit of Christ, translated into terms of service and 
personal devotion, seems to me to be in our day perhaps 
more widespread and dominant than ever before, and it is 
surely that at bottom which is tending to purify our politics 
and our business and to put international affairs upon a 
permanent footing of peace. It is unquestionably an ad- 



224 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

vantage, and a great advantage, for a public man to be known 
as a professing Christian. My own feeling in regard to this 
whole matter is one of great and confident hope." 

All the elements of a successful appeal to young men 

and women are furnished by the present conditions of the 

progress of the kingdom of Christ. The crying needs, the 

successes of the past, the enthusiasm of humanity, 

A. Resistless 

Appeal t ^ ie g ran deur of the cause, the providence of 

God, which guides the workers and the work 
and insures the service of the greatest and the humblest — 
these are some of the things that the senior teacher may 
use in engaging the lives of his pupils in the service of 
Christ. If he studies the progress of the kingdom as he 
ought, if he knows what is going on in this wonderful world, 
if he catches the divine vision of service and reward him- 
self, he can not fail to show it to others and to fire them 
with a quenchless zeal to make their lives count mightily 
in the great conflict. Looking over the past, it is not strange 
that we have won no more of the young people than we 
have, for we have lived in too small a world ourselves. 
We have made too many observations upon clothes and 
feathers and horses and dollars, and too few upon the great 
things that lie all about us in the world. 

Augustine discovered at a critical period in his own life 
that God had made his soul for Himself, and that conse- 
quently nothing but God could satisfy that soul. The same 
is true of us all. God has made our hearts for Himself and 
for the large things of His large world. What wonder that 
little things fail to win and to satisfy them? We have made 
the mistake of supposing that religious joy is the highest appeal 
that can be made to a young person. It is not even a strong 
appeal, for it is not an end in itself. The inward craving 
is for the use of God-given powers in service, and nothing- 
else will take the place of this. 

The teacher's task is to open the world before the pupil, 
to show him the great movements of consecrated activity, 



BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE 225 

to arouse his latent enthusiasm, and to help him to find his 
place in the marching lines. To do this the teacher must 
be a student himself, of course; but what else should he 
expect? He must have his own grand conception of the 
service of Christ; and what else does he wish? It is enough 
that the kingdom is rich in material for study, and that he 
has the opportunity for learning. 

II. Much Land to be Possessed 

Jehovah promised to Israel as much of the land of Canaan 
as they should conquer for themselves. They must set the 
soles of their feet upon the ground before it could be theirs. 
God was not going to fight their battles for them. 
The Conflict ^his is why they never got it all. The spiritual 
Begun Canaan can be possessed only in the same way. 

We must conquer all of it that we get. There is 
another side to the rosy view of the glories of our age. The 
world is still wicked and dangerous ; so distinctly thus that 
many good people refuse to take even a hopeful view of 
things. There are woes and sufferings and privations and 
outrages and crimes and corruptions seething all around us. 
The conflict of the ages is not over. The call for martyrs 
is not hushed : many more must shed their blood before the 
truth can emancipate the world. The cross has not been 
taken out of the world: it is still presented to him who 
would deny himself for the following of Christ. The service 
of the young is as sorely needed to-day as service has ever 
been needed in all the past. 

Take the crusade against the liquor traffic, for example. 
The gains for temperance in recent years have been as en- 
couraging as they have been surprising. At the 
ance Crusade beginning of 1909 the liquor interests loudly pro- 
claimed the culmination of the "wave" of tem- 
perance enthusiasm and victory. But in the ensuing year- 
there were substantial gains for prohibition in no less than 
thirty different States. Four States went for prohibition dur- 

15 



226 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

ing 1909, making nine in all, with an area of more than a 
half-million square miles and a total population of more than 
twelve millions. State prohibition campaigns are in active 
progress in thirteen other States, which are expected to come 
to a vote within two years. There are in the United States 
375 prohibition cities of 5,000 population and over; ninety 
of 10,000 and over; while fifty-three leading industrial centers 
in fourteen different States, of 20,000 population and over, are 
included. A World's Congress against alcoholism has been 
held in London, at which representative reformers represent- 
ing fifteen different nations organized the first International 
Prohibition Federation. 

The influential periodicals are taking new interest in the 
cause. Practically every leading magazine in America has 
contributed one or more important studies of some phase 
of the prohibition issue to popular discussion. A great mass 
of information and statistics has been accumulated, showing 
the enhanced business prosperity and the decrease of crime 
under prohibition wherever it has gone into effect. But all 
this is but a beginning. The magnitude of the evil traffic 
and its terrible power over politics is realized only as we 
begin to fight it. The consumption of spirits, malt liquors, 
and wines in this country in 1908 reached the appalling total 
of 2,006,233,408 gallons, as against 2,019,690,911 gallons the 
previous year, up to which time it had been swelling steadily 
every year. Nearly seven millions of gallons of wines were 
imported in 1909, which is more than ever before. There was 
a decrease of 135 drinking places in New York City last year, 
but 10,675 still remain to debauch our boys and young men, 
to impoverish families, to corrupt politics, and to poison 
society generally. 

We are encouraged at the progress of peace, in which 
holy cause some of the best men and women of the world 
are engaged under the banner of the Prince of Peace. They 
have done wonders against the outbreaking of one of the 
most inveterate of elemental passions. The barbarities of war 

3 



BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE 227 

have been mitigated. Women, children, and prisoners of war 
are no longer put to death or sold into slavery. The Red 
Cross Convention is accepted by all nations. Much territory 

has been neutralized, including Switzerland, Bel- 
Against~War S* um > Luxembourg, Norw T ay, Honduras, the Suez 

Canal, and the Straits of Magellan. Organized 
labor has been turned as a unit against militarism, as have 
the great religious organizations of the world. For peace 
education an Intercollegiate Peace Society has been organized, 
in which forty-seven colleges and universities are affiliated. 
More than sixty arbitration treaties have been concluded, and 
the Second Hague Conference has laid the foundations of 
a permanent High Court of Nations. 

It is proclaimed abroad that one big cannon-shot costs 
$1,700, which is three and two-thirds of a workingman's 
yearly wages, and five and one-third years of a female school- 
teacher's salary, as much as a workingman's house, or a 
college education at $425 a year; that a big battleship costs 
$10,000,000, and a million a year to keep it up, and in about 
ten years goes to the scrap pile; that the armed peace of 
Europe in the last thirty-seven years has cost at least $111,- 
000,000,000, which almost equals the entire wealth of the 
United States ; that our country spends sixty-seven and a 
half per cent of her entire revenue (exclusive of postal re- 
ceipts) for wars past and prospective, which equals the ex- 
penditures for education of all grades, public and private; 
that probably 15,000,000,000 lives have been sacrificed in wars 
since the beginning of authentic history, and more than 14,- 
000,000 during the nineteenth century; that like the ancient 
duel war does not decide moral issues ; and, in the words 
of John Hay, "War is the most futile and ferocious of human 
follies/' 

And yet the unspeakable waste goes on. Great Britain will 
spend about $240,000,000 on war supplies this year. Our 
country will spend about $220,000,000, besides $162,000,000 
for pensions. Germany is spending over $300,000,000, and 

3 



228 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

France over $110,000,000. Never was a case more clear than 
that these frightful expenditures ought at once to cease, and 
yet the war fever rages. Tkere is a loud call for help from 
the new generation here. 

These are but illustrations of the crying needs that cluster 
everywhere about us. There are all kinds of service for 
all kinds of talent. Nothing in the way of human ability 
need go to waste in our age. No man needs to stand all 
day idle in the market-place. It is the teacher's privilege 
to find the facts and show them to his pupils. Great is the 
power of facts. It is as true to-day as it was in Isaiah's 
day that "My people are gone into captivity for lack of 
knowledge." There is nothing more needful nor practical 
for the Sunday-school teacher than this line of study and 
work with his class. 

III. The Teaching of Giving 

One of the distinctive forms of human service is benevo- 
lent giving. Some one has called money the greatest of 
human inventions. It is certainly a marvel, considered in 
its varied concentrations and powers. We can 
The Service ft en send ourselves in sending our earnings, and 
Benevolence we can ^° ^y means of our money what we 
could not do otherwise. One great lesson that 
the teacher of seniors must inculcate is that of Christian 
giving — conscientious, regular, and intelligent giving. He can 
do this, first, by appealing to the primary teachings of Christ 
and of those who have followed Him. He can show what 
Christian benevolence has done in the world, and how the 
beneficent spirit is growing with the growth of the other 
virtues. The teacher will find this an interesting as well 
as a valuable study. He will find himself able to show his 
pupils a new birth of benevolence in their age. This is 
the generation of great givers and great gifts, as well as of 
smaller and widespread giving. 

There is not space in this chapter for detailed illustra- 



BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE 229 

tions, and we will only adduce a few figures as condensed 
and eloquent expressions of what is going on, The large 
benefactions of the year just closed (1909) amounted to the 
enormous total sum of $358,000,000, which was far beyond 
that of the previous year, and marks a new epoch in the 
Christian ages. Education came first in the amount received, 
and the dependent classes next. John Stewart Kennedy gave 
$30,000,000, and Mr. Rockefeller nearly $14,000,000. The 
latter's gifts to popular education now aggregate one hun- 
dred millions, and those of Mr. Carnegie exceed this enormous 
sum. Daniel K. Pearson has given large sums to small 
colleges, and announces that he is going to give away his 
last million this year to educational and philanthropic insti- 
tutions, leaving himself relatively a poor man when he cele- 
brates his ninetieth birthday. Andrew Carnegie has given 
nearly six millions in all to the New York library. Nothing 
speaks louder as to the importance and the hopefulness of the 
education of our youth than these princely donations. 

Edward Ginn has given a million dollars to promote 
the cause of universal peace. A large and increasing number 
of lovers of humanity are coming forward with their gifts 
for all kinds of worthy causes at home and abroad. The 
Churches are giving more for the support of the gospel at 
home and in the mission fields than ever before, and they 
have taken up a long line of philanthropic causes not under 
their immediate control. There never was a time when a 
rich man's million or a poor man's dime was worth as much 
as to-day. Social organizations, charity organizations, benevo- 
lent societies, educational institutions, missions, and kindred 
enterprises make it possible for one to place a dollar almost 
anywhere in the world at little or no expense to do almost 
any desired kind of work. Benevolence is but another name 
for the Christ-spirit — that brotherly love which extends to 
all men and prompts us to service on the basis of a common 
humanity. 

The teacher of seniors should reserve a large space for 



2 3 o THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

developing this incomparable grace. It lies directly in his 
path and is an essential element in a round Christian char- 
acter. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. Horizons of Thought and Purpose. 
II. Much Land to be Possessed. 
III. The Teaching of Giving. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. The significance of the rise of the common people. 

2. Evidences of the Spirit of Christ in modern world 

life. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

i. What expansions do we observe in the world of 
thought ? 

2. What social and moral expansions in our day? 

3. The tokens of the coming of Christ's kingdom. 

4. What appeals may be made to youth to enlist in the 

Master's service? 

5. What can the ordinary young person do for the 

world? 

6. How does the temperance crusade illustrate present 

conditions ? 

7. How teach systematic giving, 

8. What are the motives for benevolence? 

9. Modern facilities for utilizing the fruits of benevo- 

lence. 



CHAPTER XVII 

CLASS ORGANIZATION 



CHAPTER XVII 
CLASS ORGANIZATION 

I. The New Sunday-school 

The subject of class organization takes us back to the 
underlying conception of the Sunday-school. If we ask what 
a class is and why it should be organized, the answer will 
depend upon what a Sunday-school is and what its classes 
should be if the school is to fulfill its ideal. There may 
be argument as to what constitutes a school, but when this 
is settled there can be no argument as to what its classes must 
be. The greater carries the less with it here as always. It 
may be that some will insist upon a theory of the school which 
fairly dispenses with the idea of class organization. Such a 
theory of the school has widely prevailed in the past and is 
common to-day. In this case our plea is frankly for a new 
theory of the school. Our new age demands a new Sunday- 
school. 

Indeed, there have been several theories of the Sunday- 
school. The Raikes school was a charity school for teaching 
the rudiments of general knowledge. It had more to do 
with reading and spelling and such things than 
Theories ** ^ad w ^ ^e Bible. This theory of the 

school is nearly obsolete, though it is a curious 
fact that it still lives in part. In evidence thereof this writer 
can say that when he began work in the Sunday-school 
as a child his "Sunday-school Primer" began with the alpha- 
bet and went on with writing and spelling and reading 
and number exercises, which occupied most of the book. 
There was but very little of religious instruction in it. In 
fact, he learned to read from this self-same primer. Further- 
more, he has recently seen the same book on sale with the 

233 3 



234 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

rich line of modern Sunday-school books in a New York 
bookstore and is informed that it is selling still. 

After many years this first theory of the Sunday-school 
was generally displaced by the theological-school theory. The 
Sunday-school was used to teach formal theology. The cate- 
chism was introduced, with its ponderous and sometimes 
(from the viewpoint of the child) preposterous definitions. 
The end of the instruction was the memorizing of these 
formulas and of "proof texts" from the Scriptures, which 
were more or less applicable to the technical theological 
terms introduced. There was little or no attempt to cause 
the child to understand these chilly propositions. A volume 
might be filled with the laughable blunders which the little 
victims perpetrated in vain attempts to make them mean 
something. These have made a distinct contribution to funny- 
column literature, though they were more lamentable than 
funny. But with the old idea of the magical potency of the 
Scriptures it was apparently deemed unnecessary for the 
child to understand them very much. If he learned their 
words so as to repeat them they would operate upon him 
by a sort of spiritual cabalism and he would be duly blessed. 
But advancing intelligence has discredited this theory of the 
Sunday-school, except in the remote corners and among re- 
actionary communions. 

The too prevalent theory now is that the Sunday- 
school is the children's Church. We are aware that 
this is an offensive term to most people, but it fairly 
describes the school in fact. Most of our schools are pro- 
gramed after the manner of the standard Church service. 
They have their opening hymns, perhaps with choir and organ 
or piano, their responsive Psalm, their Creed recitation, their 
prayers, their Bible exposition, more hymns, the regular col- 
lection, the notices, and the benediction in closing. Then, 
having had their Church, the children go home, as a matter 
of course, in spite of the misgivings of their parents and the 
grief of the pastor. It may be said, in justice to this theory 



CLASS ORGANIZATION 235 

of the school, that it makes the service varied and inter- 
esting, and the Bible is far more profitably taught than in 
the old days of the theological Sunday-school. 

There is another theory — that of the Bible school, 
according to which the primary aim is the teaching of 
the Bible, with lessons and home study, and 
Bible School recitations, and tests and promotions. This the- 
ory, greatly to be preferred to any other, obtains 
in some Churches, and is destined to be in the future the 
prevailing ideal. 

It is being recognized that the Church and society at 
large imperatively need the aid of the Sunday-school in 
training the young, both to be Christians and to be moral. 
Under present conditions the home and the State school are 
unable to accomplish this of themselves. Beyond the learn- 
ing of the Bible as a Book and as literature, with all its 
history and philosophy and ethics, there is crying need of 
consecrated lives. The hearts of the young must be won to 
God and to goodness, and it is natural for precept and prac- 
tice to go together. The Sunday-school teacher is a valu- 
able, an indispensable social factor in this, for he can help 
himself to teach the truth by helping his pupils put it into 
active practice in the social world in which they live. Out 
of this feeling is growing the Sunday-school which seeks to 
do something while it is learning something and to learn 
principles by doing the things that they naturally imply. 

II. Four Leading Principles 

There are at least four principles which have operated to 
promote the organization of classes in the Sunday-school : 
the work to be done, the impulse to do something, the limi- 
tations of the individual, and the need of training in service. 

As our eyes are opened we behold the great field of service 
The Work lying all about us. There is no community nor 
to be Done any section of a community where people do 
not need help of some kind. It may be that they have 



236 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

enough of this world's goods but are among the poorest 
spiritually. There are always those to be found who are 
socially neglected or morally untutored, especially among 
children and young people. It seems wrong to leave this 
work undone, even though our Sunday-school scholars are 
still undergraduates. They have time for work and can 
do it. 

Then, they have the impulse to do it. We are not made 
to get for a while and then to give the rest of the time. 
Though this principle may be acted upon, it is no less ab- 
normal and wrong. We are made both to receive 
The Impulse * . ,- , , T , . . , 

to Do it anc * to glve a " the time - W e grow by nourish- 

ment and by exercise. The lack of exercise is 
as fatal to health as the lack of food. Teachers need never 
fear to give their scholars something to do. The disorder 
in our classes is not due to hard lessons : in most cases it 
is due to too easy requirements. The teacher must take 
account of the child's active powers as well as his recep- 
tivities. Right education gives truth, but it gives tasks also. 

A recent writer on boys says: "The Church, and even 
educationists, have not yet realized what the pent-up energy 
of boy-life means. It means power. Boulton, the partner of 
James Watt, the inventor of steam engines, was showing 
Dr. Johnson over their works at Birmingham. He said, 
We sell here what all the world desires — power.' There 
was as much steam energy latent in the world two hundred 
years ago as there is to-day. Then nothing moved by steam. 
Now hundreds of tons of cars are sent hurling along our 
railroads, Mauretanias and Dreadnoughts go forging across 
the seas, and dense populations are supported by the mills 
which steam keeps moving. This has been done by men 
who understood the force ; they have brought it to a point 
and used it. Steam may fizz away in a thousand kettles and 
wash-boilers, but not till man takes it and controls and directs 
it can it be of use. We can not do much with boys until 
we can control them. To understand this is the first thing. 

3 



CLASS ORGANIZATION 237 

In controlling boys there is one great principle to be borne 
in mind — the boy is always hungry. He has a hunger for 
many things besides food. Here are a number of them: 
(1) The hunger to know — curiosity; (2) the hunger for com- 
panionship — the social instinct; (3) the hunger to follow a 
leader — loyalty; (4) the hunger for adventure — courage; (5) 
the hunger to struggle and to win — combativeness ; (6) the 
hunger to protect and help the weak — chivalry; (7) the 
hunger to possess — ownership ; (8) the hunger for affection 
— love; (9) the hunger for God — the religious instinct; (10) 
the hunger for making things — the constructive instinct; (11) 
the hunger to test an action by doing it — imitation; (12) the 
hunger to excel his fellows — emulation; (13) the hunger for 
fairness — justice. These instincts are strong. From the 
teacher's point of view they are the most important things 
in a boy's nature, for it is by his hunger that we may easily 
control him." 

We have cited this authority at length because it is an 
illumination of the question of class organization — as well 
as of other things. The old conception of a boy as a simple, 
passive receptacle is entirely discredited. All efforts to con- 
trol him on this theory, saying nothing about anything further, 
have naturally failed. Children and young people are in- 
stinct with life and eager to spend their vital forces upon 
some worthy objective, even while they are learning to live. 
Class organization affords a means of enlisting and occupy- 
ing these valuable powers. 

In the third place, it has pleased God to make us im- 
perfect, in the sense of partial endowment. No one has all 
the talents, and the world needs all the talents. We can not 
work to advantage alone. We must supplement 
The Limita- eac j 1 th er# One man has skill, another capital, 
individual another experience; then the three are made per- 
fect in one. Each, working alone, would fail ; 
all, working together, succeed. In a Sunday-school class each 
pupil may contribute his natural part, and the teacher may 

3 



238 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

wisely gather all and correlate them and direct them and 
apply them, so that the whole violates, or rather transcends, 
the mathematical axiom and is much more than the sum 
of all the parts. 

Finally, the young need to be trained in service. It is 
not safe to trust important things with tyros. Tyros should 
be drilled and exercised until they cease to be tyros, and 

then they can essay anything. One cause of the 
Training failures of men in the official work of the Church 

is their "greenness" in it. They should have been 
trained for their service in youth. Training comes naturally 
to youth, but not so to maturity. The young may be taught 
to do the work that awaits them in the Church with facility 
and with real zest. 

III. The Standard Class 

From the principles above dwelt upon it will not be 
difficult to deduce the organization, with its details. Of 
course there may be all degrees of organization, but in 
practice there is a standard. This has been 
The Organ- fi xe( i by the International Sunday-school Asso- 
Bible Class ciation, in co-operation with denominational au- 
thorities. This sets forth the minimum of organi- 
zation which must be reached by the class before it shall 
be entitled to official recognition. 

This standard of organization requires three things : 

(i) The class must be organically connected with the 
Sunday-school, of which it shall be considered an integral 
part. 

(2) The class shall have the following officers at least: 
teacher, president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer. 
It shall also have three standing committees, as follows : 
membership, devotional, and social. It is not required that 
they bear precisely these names, but the class must have 
three committees which shall carry on these three forms 
of work. 

3 



CLASS ORAGANIZATION 239 

(3) The class shall consist of adult members only. 

Within the last few years the organization of classes has 
advanced at a remarkable rate, and the International Asso- 
ciation has been active in promoting and directing this. The 
thousands of organized Adult Classes in this country are 
giving a new cast to our whole work and prophesy great 
things for the future. In carefully going over the various 
problems presented by this growing interest, the authorities 
have deemed it wise to fix sixteen years as the minimum 
age limit for the organization of "Adult Classes.'' This brings 
the advantages of the standard organization within the reach 
of adolescents, though we do not count these as adults at all. 
The natural and formal distinction between the senior and 
adult departments of the school is not to be obliterated or 
disregarded in any way, but this recognition given to or- 
ganized classes in the senior department makes it possible 
for them to be enrolled with the others and to pass into 
the adult organization without a new registration when all 
the members of the class have reached the age of twenty years. 

As soon as the organization has been effected, application 
should be made for a certificate to the Board of Sunday- 
schools in Chicago, stating these items: name of the class, 
name of the school, town or city, State, names of the officers, 
names of the committees provided for, ages of the oldest 
and youngest members, date of organization, number of 
members, class motto, name and address of teacher, name 
and address of president, name and address of person apply- 
ing for certificate. Blanks for these applications may be had 
without cost from the Board of Sunday-schools. In response 
to such an application as this the Board will issue a certificate 
of recognition bearing the seals of the Board of Sunday- 
schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church and of the Inter- 
national Sunday-school Association ,together with the signa- 
tures of the denominational and the International executive 
secretaries. 

The Board of Sunday-schools has prepared a very valu- 



2 4 o THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

able leaflet for general distribution which contains full direc- 
tions how to organize a class, also a model form of con- 
stitution for adoption. It also gives a valuable list 
of helps for this work. As this leaflet will doubt- 
less be revised as often as necessary and kept up to date, 
it will suffice here to refer students to this admirable little 
compend, whose title is "The Organized Adult Bible Class." 1 

IV. The Larger Organization 

From what has been said it will be inferred that the class 
organization is neither solitary nor independent. It is a part 
of a grand group of classes organized on similar lines and 
for the same kind of work. These are to be 
The Adult found in nearly all the Churches and in every 
Movement P art °^ ^e Protestant world. Their number is 
rapidly growing and their influence is extending 
beyond the Churches into our communities everywhere. There 
is a growing literature, both of books and periodicals, de- 
voted to their interests, and thousands of workers are zealous 
in this new and prosperous movement. 

Not all the classes in a school may be organized, but those 
that are may work together. The young men's classes meet 
socially with the young women's, and both assemble with 
similar classes in neighboring Churches. One or more of the 
organized classes may unite for special service in a local 
Church. The young men's classes of the town or city may 
unite for work among young men, the young women's classes 
may get together for a common purpose, and the entire body 
of organized classes in a city may federate for some form 
of public service. There is a strong esprit de corps growing 
up in this country in the organized class movement. It marks 
a new interest, not only in class work, but in the Sunday- 
school, the Church, and the social welfare. If this is cher- 



1 Copies of this leaflet may be had free by addressing the Board of Sunday- 
schools, 57 Washington St., Chicago, 111. 

3 



CLASS ORGANIZATION 241 

ished and developed as it may be, it will prove of incalculable 
value to the Churches and the kingdom. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The New Sunday-school. 

II. Four Leading Principles. 

III. The Standard Class. 

IV. The Larger Organization. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. The influence of organization upon class growth. 

2. The organized Adult Bible Class movement. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. What is a Sunday-school for? 

2. Name some historic forms of the Sunday-school. 

3. Why do not more scholars attend Church? 

4. What has led to the organization of classes? 

5. The value of class organization for the school. 

6. The value of class organization for the pupil. 

7. Why do the scholars like to organize? 

8. Give the requirements of an organized Adult Bible 

Class. 



16 



CHAPTER XVIII 

WAYS OF WORKING 



CHAPTER XVIII 
WAYS OF WORKING 

I. The Field of Service 

Having accepted the principle that the teaching of ado- 
lescents must be accompanied by doing things, and having 
made the class organization for this, we have now to inquire 
more particularly into the kind of work that may be done. 
There may be some question as to this, but we shall pro- 
ceed upon the supposition that the field for class work is 
broad, and that any worthy work for the class or its members, 
or for the school as a whole, or the Church, or the com- 
munity, or even the world, is fairly within our scope. This 
may seem to open a wide door, but the fact is that the door 
is already open. The needs of the world appeal to the class. 
We are teaching great principles that touch the world's needs, 
and the quickened sympathies and appetences of our pupils 
demand large and varied satisfaction. 

i. The way of the Church. What our classes must 
do is governed by what the school must do, and this in 
turn is determined by what the Church is doing. Now, the 
Church of Jesus Christ was established by Him on the broad- 
est principles, and His ultimate aim is the salvation or the 
spiritual renewal of the whole world. This gives us a large 
view and a wide field. And one of the plainest signs of 
our times is the recognition of this world-mission by the 
Church. It is affecting every activity of the Church. The 
time was when the conversion of souls was about all that 
preachers preached for and singers sang for and workers 
worked for : now there are the added agencies and enthusi- 

245 5 



246 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

asms for the setting up of the kingdom of Christ in the 
earth. Formerly we sought to do temperance work by getting 
drunkards to sign the pledge : now we are making efforts on 
a broad scale to prohibit the manufacture and sale of in- 
toxicants and to educate the young as to the baneful effects 
of alcohol. The word "prohibition" or "abstinence" has sup- 
planted the word "temperance," though even this word is 
a late acquisition by the Churches. Once we opened our 
protracted meetings and welcomed the sinners of the neigh- 
borhood to the exhortations and the prayers delivered therein : 
now we are carrying the gospel to men, and we go to the ends 
of the earth with our Christian message. In the old days 
we promoted Christian education by means of the Catechism 
and a few isolated theological seminaries : now we have a 
vast system of Sunday-schools, with nearly four millions of 
scholars and a splendid literature prepared and published for 
them, besides hundreds of important schools and colleges of 
the best modern type. The modern Church is doing evan- 
gelistic work, and besides this, benevolent and educational 
and charitable and philanthropic and reformatory work under 
almost every form of social service. If we are to train 
adolescents for their place in the modern Church we must 
exercise them in varied tasks. 

2. The social function of the Sunday-school. The 
clear view of the underlying principle is of so much more 
importance than any details of mechanical method that we 
must dwell a little longer upon it. The school has a social 
function; that is, there is a distinctly social work it must 
do, after the lessons have been learned within. Dr. Mc- 
Farland says : "The mission of the Sunday-school is to 
train men and women to take their places in society and do 
the work which Christian men and women should do. Chris- 
tianity is essentially a social religion, requiring the recogni- 
tion of the obligations growing out of the various relations 
which men and women sustain to each other. It should be 
taught, not merely in its abstract principles, but in its prac- 

3 



WAYS OF WORKING 247 

tical applications to life. This kind of teaching should begin 
in the Sunday-school." "It is high time that we should take 
notice that a socialism of a very pernicious sort is rapidly 
developing in modern society. That evil socialism will grow 
and prevail unless we meet it by a genuine Christian social- 
ism that will carry the teachings of Jesus Christ into the 
common life." 

Take also a citation from Dr. Hallock : "The chief in- 
terest to-day is in social progress and redemption. It has 
supplanted among Christians the theological interest of fifty 
years ago, and in many places the evangelistic interest of 
twenty-five years ago. Where fifty years ago we were con- 
cerned in solving the problem of the future state of the 
impenitent or the inspiration of the Scriptures, now we are 
concerned with solving the problem of the saloon, the brothel, 
the disease-breeding tenement, the corrupt government, the 
defrauding trust, and the always hovering curse of war." 

All this means, not the departure from the teachings 
of Jesus Christ, but the bringing them to their natural fru- 
ition. It is the gospel that has kindled the religious en- 
thusiasm of Christians for the redemption of an evil world. 
The master-motive of it all is found in the vow that conse- 
crates the soul of the disciple to the will of the Master. 
This is not a displacement of personal experience: it is the 
realization of it in the true following of the Master. The 
world can be saved by it, but never without it. "The love 
of man which lies back of all progress is born of the love 
of God." 

II. The Culture of Personal Friendship 

One of the primary ways of working is to provide class 

socials for the promotion of personal friendships among the 

members of the class. As has been previously 
Class Socials , , ,- . _, ,. * ,. . 

suggested, this is pure and practical religion. 

It fulfills the injunction, "Love one another." This can not be 

done without opportunity, and class socials should afford 

3 



248 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

this opportunity. Love for outside people can grow only 
from the love of inside friends. Dr. C. E. Jefferson says : 
"The Christian religion reinforces the native instincts and 
aptitudes of our nature. It makes human beings more social; 
it brings them closer together. It increases the craving for 
fellowship and widens the joys of it. Christians, when normal, 
want to come together; the impulse to do so is spontaneous 
and irresistible. In the darkest days of persecution the Lord's 
disciples have met together by night if not by day, and in 
caves and desert places if not in churches and homes. The 
fagots of bigots and the swords of kings have never been 
able to keep Christians apart. They knew instinctively that 
the life of the heart depends upon fellowship, and that the 
very existence of Christianity hangs upon meetings. It is 
in meetings that the sacred fire is kept burning in which 
the iniquity of the world is to be consumed." 

This applies as well to social gatherings as to devotional 
services. Both are religious, and equally so. We are not 
to pray and sing hymns all the time. There is need of 
other exercises. Who says that socials are selfish? When 
a young person attends a social as a Christian, he may seek 
the good of others as truly as if he were in a prayer-meet- 
ing. He may do much to cheer some of his fellows who 
have no homes where they live and are in sore need of 
the helpful influence of clean companions, He may prove 
to some young men and women who are disposed to sniff 
at "Sunday-school doings" that these are far superior to 
public dances and other low forms of pleasure in the pure 
and elevating joy that they afford. 

Lord Byron, who drank of every cup that earth could 
give him — Lord Byron, with a wealth of intellectual and 
physical nature equal to almost anything — just before he died, 
sitting among gay company, was meditative and moody. They 
said to him, "Byron, what are you thinking about so seri- 
ously?" "O," he said, "I was thinking of the number of 
happy days I have had in this world." "How many?" was 

3 



WAYS OF WORKING 249 

asked. "I can count but eleven, and I was just wondering 
if I could ever make up the dozen in this world of pangs 
and tears and sorrows." The pleasures of the simple, social 
life are not only pure, but they are lasting, and they grow 
with the years. In the delightful circle of a Sunday-school 
class there are larger opportunities for doing good than any 
one who has not tried it would think possible. 

Beyond the evening social, there are many ways in which 
the companionship of the class may be cultivated. There 
are excursions to adjacent cities, to points of historic in- 
terest, to the home of a distant member, to a convention 
or an institute. There are picnics which the class may 
attend as a class, or which may be limited to the class and 
a few invited friends. Or several class organizations may 
unite in some social event. It is scarcely necessary or pos- 
sible within our limits to go far into the details of these 
things. There are entire books written to furnish information 
and suggestions therefor, such as Dr. Reisner's "Social Plans 
for Young People." The field has been pretty widely culti- 
vated by this time, and young people need be at no loss 
for interesting occupations for all the time they will have 
for social enjoyments. 

III. Literary Work 

Many classes have found certain lines of literary work 

interesting. There is little time, say thirty minutes, in the 

Sunday-school session for the studies that the young people 

like to follow. As the years widen before them 

Special their interest in the great world widens, and this 

Courses of . . .-„«..--. , 

Study gives them great possibilities for literary work. 

Indeed, it is not necessary for any class of 
adolescents to adhere to the line of work followed by other 
classes in the school. One of the most injurious effects of 
the old uniform lesson has been the compulsion or the re- 
pulsion of adolescents to whom the topics and their treatment 
have been uninteresting or positively obnoxious. The new 



250 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

system of graded lessons has the important advantage of 
giving the young people what they wish and what they need. 
When the lessons for seniors are provided they will be 
made for seniors, and there will doubtless be elective courses 
which will afford a choice of study-subjects. The life of 
Christ, for example, prepared for such close and consecutive 
study as college students are accustomed to give to the 
great characters of history, may be taken up; and in order 
to have more time for the work, special meetings of the 
class may be appointed at other hours, and particular lines 
of work assigned to individual members for preparation and 
report. So the life of Paul or Moses or David may be 
undertaken; or the history of particular periods of Old 
Testament times, or the history of the early Church or the 
Mediaeval Church or the Modern Church, or of any other 
institution or of any great event that has had its pro- 
found bearing upon subsequent life. Besides historical studies, 
there may be literary or scientific studies, or social studies, 
or political investigations. There is no natural limit to the 
things that a class of live young folks may do if they desire. 
The more they know of the world and of the Church and 
its past and present, the more likely will they be to be 
stirred to a due sense of their opportunities. 

IV. Work for the School and Church 

There is a wider circle of service that a class may 
render — for the school as a whole. There is always can- 
vassing for new members to be done, and there is the visi- 
tation of members sick and absent. There are 
Definite letters to write and messages to carry. One of 

Helpfulness the most beautiful forms of work for a class 
of young girls is the regular visitation of an 
orphanage or a hospital, with the preparation of little gifts 
for their shut-in friends between times. A girls' class may 
be organized as a "Sunshine Band," working with great 
efficiency in the Home Department of the school. The boys 



WAYS OF WORKING 251 

may be enlisted in some form of Home Department work 
suited to them. Or a class may take up the musical work 
of the school, either alone or in conjunction with other 
classes. A great deal may be done in this way, and every 
pupil in the school with musical talents should be sought out 
and his services secured. 

Then, there is the great athletic interest. If a school has 
nothing of this kind, it would be quite appropriate for a 
class of adolescents to take the matter up and see whether 
something could not be done in the way of providing for 
this real need. In great cities there is always a demand 
for proper playgrounds for children. Scores of boys and 
girls are annually killed in the streets, mainly because they 
have no other place to play. Some of the older persons 
may unite in an effort for securing and protecting some 
vacant lot where the young folks may safely play. Or they 
may fix up a baseball ground in any town or village, or a 
tennis court, or a croquet ground, or some similar place 
of amusement. Or the class may join in a movement for 
a fully equipped gymnasium adjacent to the church. 

When it comes to the anniversaries of the school, there 
are many ways in which a class organization may work 
helpfully: such as drilling, decorating, advertising, soliciting, 
and providing. A superintendent is always glad to have a 
compact little organization, under competent leadership, that 
he can lay his hand upon for the work that must be done 
to make the school go. 

Every pastor knows how good it is to have a number 
of active and earnest young people to come to his help in 
the varied work of the parish. As he will always know 
what is needed and will specify the tasks to be 
the Church done, ft will not be necessary for us to do 
this here. But the time has come for the utiliza- 
tion of the young people in the active work of the Church as 
never before, and their usefulness here is beyond question. 



252 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

V. In the Circle of the World 

We recur to the kind of work to which we gave attention 
at length in the beginning of the chapter. As the Churches 
are giving themselves to various forms of social work, some 
of the finest possible opportunities are afforded our earnest 
young folks for the kind of service that means so much 

to them and to the community. In the temper- 
Definite ance reform, for instance, organized classes of 
Service adolescents have co-operated with adult classes to 

canvass for votes and signatures, to watch regis- 
tration, and help to get out the vote in local option elections. 
In charity work young people are exceedingly valuable as 
visitors and investigators and as day-by-day friends and help- 
ers. In the work for suffering childhood adolescents can do 
much when they are properly organized. 

Take a case like this. In an East Side school in New 
York an insubordinate boy was sent home with a note to 
his father. But the teacher became a little uneasy lest the 
boy might be flogged too severely, and she asked him about 
it. "No," said the lad, "he'll just turn me out, I guess." 
The next day the boy came to school heavy with sleeplessness 
and blue with cold. She learned that it was a common 
form of punishment with the parents in that quarter to turn 
a refractory child out into the streets for the night ! And 
these are not by any means the worst parents. What is 
to be done? The remedy is not with the school nor with 
the parents alone. It has been undertaken by the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and they must 
do it by enlisting as many as possible of the more favored 
ones in the urgent work. This is home missionary work. 
It is Christlike work. It is what we all need to have a hand 
in, and the aid of the youth and of Sunday-schools will be 
welcomed by those who are directing this society and by the 
other agencies that are taking pity on the neglected chil- 
dren of the community. 



WAYS OF WORKING 253 

The elementary lessons of social service are appropriate 
to class effort. Whatever a Church undertakes may be 
divided up systematically among its workers, and the classes 
of the school will be glad to come in for their share. This 
kind of work will not only aid them in their Biblical studies, 
but it will make religion real to them. 

Not long ago a Church took up an independent investi- 
gation of the problem of the milk supply of its city, in- 
cluding the charges of extortionate prices charged for this 
indispensable food. The men of the Church took charge of 
the inquiry, and went about it systematically. Their findings 
were a valuable contribution to the great public problem. 
Another Church is carrying on an industrial school which 
meets every Saturday morning, with classes in chair-caning, 
raffia, kitchen-gardening, cooking, dressmaking, millinery, 
embroidery, knitting, modeling, and kindergarten. The en- 
rollment of this school is now over two hundred, and it 
is proving of inestimable value to those who need the in- 
struction furnished, and who for the most part can not 
obtain it elsewhere. It may be noted that the Bible school 
of this Church has grown in three years from 212 to 925 
members. One of the officials says concerning their work : 
"The Church must adopt practical methods to attract and 
hold the masses. At the same time it must keep pace with 
the higher education. The spirit of the age is the spirit of 
love that seeks to make real the brotherhood of man." Prof. 
Rauschenbusch has recently said: "If the Church tries to 
confine itself to theology and the Bible, and refuses its 
larger mission to humanity, its theology will gradually become 
mythology and its Bible a closed Book/' 

There is no limit to the forms and kinds of work that 
organized classes may undertake for social betterment. Not 
much has yet been done in this direction, but it is coming. 
The Churches are reaching out into the world as never be- 
fore, and they will doubtless apply Christianity to social needs 
in such a way as to accredit their vital relation to him 



254 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

who "went about doing good." This work will so illustrate 
and enforce the gospel that they preach as to win the world 
at last, and bring the kingdom in. It is plain that Christian 
individuals ought to do this kind of work. It seems also 
plain that in whatever an individual needs to do he may 
have the co-operation of his companions and the guidance 
of his Sunday-school teacher. 

VI. The Teacher's Opportunity 

Space remains only for the suggestion that the teacher is 
greatly needed here for looking over the whole field and 
selecting for his pupils the work that he considers best for 
them to undertake. With his riper experience he can be of 
inestimable help to them, not only in this, but in guiding 
and counseling them all along. He can take special cogni- 
zance of the particular abilities of each pupil, and he can 
co-ordinate their efforts so that their efforts may be directed 
effectually as a unit. 

Lesson Outline: 

I. The Field of Service. 
II. The Culture of Personal Friendship. 

III. Literary Work. 

IV. Work for the School and Church. 
V. In the Circle of the World. 

VI. The Teacher's Opportunity. 

Topics for Special Study: 

i. The need of cultivating friendships. 

2. Possible forms of social service for the Senior Class. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

i. What are the limits to the work of the Church? 
2. Who shall put into practice the principles the Church 
preaches ? 

3 



WAYS OF WORKING 255 

3. The Church and reforms. 

4. The Church and charities. 

5. How far is the Church responsible for the welfare 

of the community? 

6. What is the best antidote for worldly pleasures? 

7. What proper subjects for senior study? 

8. Is it reasonable for the seniors to study the same 

lessons as the primaries ? 

9. Is it practicable to make a success of a class of 

young people that spends no more than an hour 
and a half a week together? 
10. Is it any of the Sunday-school's business if there 
is destitution and neglect and wretchedness in the 
town? 



CHAPTER XIX 
JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 



17 



CHAPTER XIX 
JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 

I. A Study of Church Membership 

We once knew a fluttery young man who used to carry 
a clinical thermometer around with him. At intervals when 
he experienced some sort of a "goneness," he would hastily 

thrust the tube into his mouth, take his tempera- 
Religion is ture ^ recor d it in his memorandum book, and 
Feeling heave a sigh. There are some people who seem to 

take their religion in about this fashion — and 
there are a few left who go so far as to say that if a healthy 
and earnest Christian does not feel the need of the ther- 
mometer, "the root of the matter is not in him." There 
are, fortunately, not as many such persons now as there 
used to be. When they all pass there will be a better pros- 
pect for our young people. We are blessed in our day with 
an enlarged and enriched conception of what it means to 
be a Church member. To join the Church is not to enter 
a circle of pious selfishness — for it is just as truly selfish 
to be engrossed with our own piety as with our virtues 
or our business interests. The original conception of the 
Church was a brotherhood wherein each lived not for him- 
self, but for all. To this we are returning as we learn 
Christ more perfectly. It is not enough for our young 
people to be converted : they must go on into the brother- 
hood that Christ established, to be a part of it, and to bear 
worthily one's share in it. The teacher of adolescents must 
include this in his plan. He must win his pupils to Christ 

259 3 



260 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

first, and to the service of Christ in the Church next. He 
must strive to show them the incomparable advantages of 
the Church as a field of effort, an agency of achievement, 
and a brotherhood of co-operation. To this study we devote 
this lesson. 

Nothing is more characteristic of modern pedagogy than 
the importance attributed to the point of view. Without 
the right angle from which to view facts and principles, they 

are not seen in the right perspective or propor- 
of View ti° n * A distorted or foreshortened truth becomes 

false, and such a fact becomes fiction. "We are 
educated by the things we admire and love; and unless 
young people can be placed at the standpoint from which 
virtue is seen to be pleasant and all her ways peaceful and 
beauteous, the real master is the evil given a romance and 
a glamor by the imagination working without conscience or 
moral aim." We might have said this before, for the prin- 
ciple applies to the teaching of anything. But it is of sur- 
passing importance in the final formative work upon the 
young mind that the teacher know how to place it just 
where the rich affections and the quick sympathies of ado- 
lescents shall fasten upon the right persons and the best 
things. 

It is possible to excite a subtle sympathy with evil while 
one is issuing warnings against it. There is besides the 
theorems and the formulas and the dates and syllogisms, 
what some have called "the tone value;" that is, the at- 
tractive sound that accompanies the lesson like fascinating 
music and charms the heart along with or away from it. 
Now, this tone value can not be imprisoned in words : it 
is the function of personality, and proceeds from an uncon- 
scious heart. "It can not be secured by legal enactments 
any more than a perfume can be captured by a net. The 
letter of a law may be strictly kept, but its spirit may as 
easily be violated." The tone value of the teacher's work 
counts for more with the emotions and the volitions of the 



JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 261 

pupils than all else he does, and it largely depends upon his 
point of view. Professor John Adams lays much stress upon 
the importance of this. It applies with great force to the 
teacher's representation of Church membership and his in- 
citement to its duties. 

II. The Youth a Soul- Winner 

One of the first privileges of Church membership is soul- 
winning. We are not referring now to the teacher, but to 
the pupil. If he is rightly taught, he will realize that he 

has been won to win. This is his work and his 
The Youth's p ro per work. He should be shown that it de- 
Youth pends largely upon himself. The old can not 

win the young to any great extent: this is for 
the young to do. Spiritual influence glides along parallels. 
Those nearest a person can do the most with him. They 
understand him best. We have often heard a parent who 
could not understand what the baby said, ask the baby's four 
or five-year-cld brother to interpret, which he readily did. 
Some high authorities affirm that young teachers are the 
best for children; for though they know less than older ones, 
their point of view is better. It is said that years ago the 
men of England made a determined effort in behalf of the 
young men of London and failed. Then they got the women 
to go after them and, strange to say, they failed, too. They 
became discouraged, and while they were trying to solve the 
problem of how to reach the young men, a young man took 
it up on his own account and went after two or three of 
his companions. He got them, and they got others. George 
Williams had thus discovered the much-sought method, and 
the Young Men's Christian Association was born then and 
there. 

This advantage of youth is illustrated in the story of a 
country boy who came to the city and was invited by a 
young salesman to go to Church with him. He went. There 
was a handsome old man of about seventy-five years of age 



262 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

who got up and in the gravest way said that he was just 
waiting for God to take him; that he had lived his life; 
that God Jiad been good to him; and that religion was a 
good thing to die by. He said: "I sat away back and 
soliloquized: 'Well, old man, you can't touch me; you have 
lived your life ; you have n't any sympathy with a big boy ; 
it has passed over my head.' Soon after a younger fellow 
got up. He said: 'I have just begun the Christian life. 
Two years ago I was converted; I had just begun business, 
and had a prejudice against religion. I am a great deal 
happier; I am a better business man.' I listened to him, 
and I said to myself: There ycu are; you want to be a 
business man, and he tells you how you can be a better 
business man. He tells you that religion is good to live 
by. 'Now, do you ever intend to be a Christian ?' 'Yes/ 
'Well, if it is a good thing, why do n't you be it right away ?' 
I said, 'Yes, I will/ I waited until everybody went out 
except the janitor and the old minister; and as the latter 
came down the aisle he met a country boy coming up, and 
I was the chap. I simply said to him, 'I have settled to- 
night to give my heart to God/ And he reached out his 
hand and said, 'God bless you, you will never regret it/ 
That was the whole business/' This is John Wanamaker's 
story of how he was won to Christ. 

Older people frequently say things to young people that 
repel them instead of attracting them. It is the matter 
of the point of view again. They have forgotten many of 
the facts and feelings of youth and say the 
TactoTyouth wron §" thing, or do the wrong thing while say- 
ing the right. They often address themselves 
to imaginary problems and fail to discern the real. The re- 
sult is that the young person is exhorted to accept some- 
thing that he already possesses, or is left in the dark 
when he would gladly have the light. Often he is ex- 
horted by words when he is making careful observations 
upon deeds. 



JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 263 

A prominent lecturer once said: "If the present lecturer 
has the right to consider himself a real Christian, if he has 
been of any service to his fellow creatures, and has attained 
to any usefulness in the Church of Christ, he owes it to 
the sight of a companion, who slept in the same room with 
him, bending his knees in prayer every night on retiring 
to rest. That scene, so unostentatious and yet so uncon- 
cealed, roused my slumbering conscience and sent an arrow 
to my heart; for though I had been religiously educated, 
I had restrained prayer and cast off the fear of God. My 
conversion followed, and soon after my entrance upon col- 
lege studies for the work of the ministry. Nearly half a 
century has rolled away since then, with all its multitudinous 
events, but that little chamber, that humble couch, that pray- 
ing youth are still present to my imagination, and will never 
be forgotten, even amidst the splendors of heaven." 

When the Church comes to the full realization of the 
power of the young to win their fellows, and takes this 
fruitful principle into her systematic Sunday-school work with 
adolescents, she will enter upon the solution of her gravest 
problem. 

We must never forget that this work is as needful to 
the savior as to the saved. Haslett cites the case of a 
pastor who was successful in filling his church at its preach- 
ing services and generally had three hundred 
The Saving young men in his congregation. But four years 
Reacts afterward there were not fifty of them there, ex- 

cept on special occasions. What was the trouble? 
He had not brought them into the brotherhood. There is 
a limit to the spectator business, and he found it. The 
Vine is a living thing, and everything merely tied onto it 
will wither. The branches that draw their life from the 
Vine because they are a part of it represent the only Chris- 
tians that last. A merely formal or ritualistic relation does 
not suffice. One might think that there could be no adultera- 
tion of this kind of soul-winning, but there can be. 



264 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

Coe tells us of a girl who took a vow shortly after her 
conversion to pray for the unconverted at ten o'clock every 
forenoon. Believing that kneeling was essential to the com- 
plete fulfilling of her vow, and being in her school at ten 
o'clock, she was perplexed to know how to do what she had 
promised God among the pupils in the schoolroom. But 
she solved the problem in this way. When the clock struck 
ten she dropped her pencil on the floor, underneath her desk. 
Then she got down to pick it up, and in this act managed 
to touch her knees momentarily to the floor, and her vow 
was kept ! 

It should be easy to see that here is a complete absence 
of the motive that alone can give vitality to soul-winning 
— the aim of the brotherhood. The genuine soul-winner loves 
souls, and seeks them intelligently and ceaselessly, devising 
his own ingenious methods and overcoming his difficulties 
in the same rational way that he pursues other ends. 

Contrast with the mechanical piety of the schoolgirl the 
real zeal of the workingman in Dr. Jowett's Church at Bir- 
mingham, who toiled for months to reclaim a sin-bruised 
brother. "I Ve got him !" he shouted, with his face radiant 
with joy, "got him after eighty visits." It was true. Night 
after night for eighty nights he had gone out after his man, 
catching him before the drink could entice him, bringing him 
home to the Church and watching over him ceaselessly. 

Mr. Hubert Carleton, secretary of the Brotherhood of 
St. Andrew, has tested this matter pretty thoroughly in his 
work with boys, and he believes cordially in the efficacy of 
a boy's own service in saving him. Make the very highest 
appeal to the boy by giving him real work to do and plenty 
of it. He says : "Yes, the boy can be won, but not in the 
usual way in which the Church is working at the problem 
to-day. The boy can be won by employing his interests, his 
energies, his possibilities, and his inspiration in behalf of 
God and God's cause. The way to win the boy for the Church 
is to teach him to work for the Church. And by Church 



JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 265 

work I do not mean what is commonly meant by Church 
work. I do not mean to give the boy some petty tinkering 
around the church and allow him to call that Church work 
or work for God. If you send your boy running messages 
for the rector, delivering notices, collecting books, and the 
like, and teach him to do nothing else, you have dwarfed 
the boy at the very beginning; and if you dwarf the boy 
you will never develop the man. The Church is in this world 
to make people Christians who are not Christians to-day, 
and the boy must be taught by the Church to take up his 
share in this work. In plain English, then, let me say 
that no boy can be a real Christian unless he is trying to 
make it easier for other boys who are not Christians to 
become Christians, or those who are Christians already to 
become better Christians. The Church is teaching the boy 
to-day a maimed religion, an imperfect religion, a religion 
with the heart left out of it. She is teaching him that it is 
his duty to live straight, but she is not teaching him that 
it is his equally necessary duty to help the other fellow to 
live straight." 

III. The Use of the Revival 

It should not be thought that this advocacy of individual 
soul-winning dispenses with the religious revival. It is natural 
for springtime to come. Scarcely anything has been so sorely 

abused in the Church as the revival, and yet it 
©^Grace" 1 * 8 ^ as * ts P* ace anc * function. The chapter on 

rhythm in Herbert Spencer's philosophy has been 
to this writer one of the most illuminating contributions to 
the whole discussion of revivals. In the logic of this the 
permanence of these times of refreshing is bound up. Dr. 
Forbush says that the revival appeals especially to ado- 
lescence. "It satisfies the emotional nature. It is a simple 
appeal to the heart. Take away the late hours, the long 
services, the untrained and fanatic exhorters — features which 
are incidental — and reduce it to a 'children's crusade/ in 

3 



266 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

which the social and emotional element is retained, where 
the ideal of the heroic and loving Christ and His grand 
and strenuous service are held up by the pastor or a wise 
specialist with children, and we have an instrument of his- 
toric dignity and perpetual value. The danger is the forcing 
of the nature before it has come to its day of choice, and the 
neglect to follow up the decision by careful training." 

This was written with special reference to early adoles- 
cence, but it applies equally well to our period. 

IV, The Youth a Sunday-school Teacher 

Another investment of influence offered by the Church 
to the adolescent is the work of teaching. This is of the 
utmost value, both to the school and the young teacher him- 
self. We are using our young people in this 
of influence delightful work more and more as their adapta- 
tion to it and their efficiency in it become evident. 
Some of our inexperienced teachers rank among the best 
of all teachers. They seem to be able to strike the right 
tone value by a sort of youthful intuition, and their point 
of view naturally coincides with that of their pupils. 

Forbush calls the three curses of humanitarian work utili- 
tarianism, uniformity, and numbers — "and the greatest of 
these is numbers. It takes perpetual vigilance to do Church 
or social work without becoming a slave to the addition 
table. All work for men that amounts to anything is in 
the end the influence of personality on personality. We must 
forget our addition table and stop seeing our boys as flocks. 
The most important thing any one can do for a boy is to 
love him." This thing young people seem highly gifted for 
doing. They are not crusted over with formalism. Their 
sympathies are fresh and frank and their enthusiasms are 
clean and contagious. There are classes of young people 
without teachers that have run along admirably for a long 
time. They began in accidents, but were continued on their 
merits. The Young Men's Christian Association has been 



JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 267 

experimenting with Bible classes with no teachers but boys 
of the same age as their classmates, and the officers of the 
association express much satisfaction with the results ob- 
tained. These pupil-teachers have been carefully drilled by 
an adult or in a training-class, of course. It is then found 
that "the absence of sermonizing and the freedom from the 
dominance of an adult personality make for a healthy and 
expressive class life." 

This is valuable testimony for us. It suggests that the 
Sunday-school teacher should have teacher-training in mind 
for his pupils, and as soon as possible prepare his young 
people for this kind of service. Every pastor knows the 
value of the work of the right kind of young girl or young 
man as a teacher; and he also knows how many who have 
seemed to be worldly and frivolous swing around and prove 
themselves the right sort when they assume the responsi- 
bility of real work. We are sure that many have been 
saved by teaching who would never have been saved by 
teachers. 

Alice Freeman Palmer was born in poverty, but she be- 
queathed the world one of the richest legacies of blessing 
left by any woman anywhere. She joined the brotherhood 
that we have been describing at fourteen years 
One Young f a g e ^ an( j b ecame a force in it from that day. 
Secret After her death her husband received nearly two 

thousand letters from statesmen, schoolgirls, 
clerks, lawyers, teachers, country wives, outcasts, millionaires, 
ministers, men of letters — all feeling the marvel of her per- 
sonality and lamenting their personal loss at her untimely 
death. At one time her husband urged her to deny the 
numerous personal interviews that she was according, saying 
that she could accomplish so much more with her limited 
strength by writing books of lasting value. Her reply re- 
veals the secret of her consecration and admirably illustrates 
the principle that this lesson is presenting to the teachers 
of adolescents : "I am trying to make girls wiser and happier. 

3 



268 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

Books do n't help much toward that. They are entertaining 
enough, but they are really dead things. Why should I 
make more of them. It is people that count. You want to 
put yourself into people; they touch other people; those, 
others still; and so you go on working forever.'' 

Her husband said that she instinctively adopted the idea 
of Jesus, that if you would remold the world the wise way 
is not to write, but to devote your fleeting years to per- 
sistent talks with individuals, like His with a dozen young 
fishermen. This opportunity the Church offers to all our 
young women and young men. Mrs. Palmer wrote this to a 
friend : "As I lived among these young people day after 
day I felt a want of something, not intellectual or even re- 
ligious culture; not a lack of physical training or that ac- 
quaintance with social life which can be so charming in a 
true woman; but a something I must call heart-culture, in 
lack of a better name. Every one was kind, but cold. There 
was no intentional freezing, but an absence of the sunshine 
which melts its own way. Looking on and into them, I 
said, I will try to be a friend to them all, and put all that 
is truest and sweetest and sunniest and strongest that I 
can gather into their lives. While I teach them solid knowl- 
edge and give them real school drill as faithfully as I may, 
I will give, too, all that the years brought to my own soul. 
God help me to give what He gave — myself — and make that 
self worth something to somebody ; teach me to love all as He 
has loved, for the sake of the infinite possibilities locked up 
in every human soul. Consecrating myself to the future of 
these girls, to them as women, I have tried in this life 
among them to make them feel they can always come to 
me in happy and in sad times, in restless moments, or home- 
sick or tired hours. Whenever they want help or comfort 
my door and heart shall be open." 

These citations from Professor Palmer's biography of his 
wife illustrate the spirit that makes the ceremony of joining 
the Church a virtual sacrament. 

3 



JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 269 

V. The Only Brotherhood 

It is not within the scope of this lesson to specify all 
the numerous agencies of the Church that invite the devo- 
tion of our youth. We have noted some of the more im- 
portant lines of Church opportunity, the spirit of the true 
member, with the value of his service both to the Church 
and to himself. Some one has said that the principal moral 
task of the child is to grow a conscience, and of the youth 
to grow a will. The will is nurtured only by exercise, and 
the atmosphere and the facilities of the Church afford in- 
comparably the best chance in the world for this. 

We add this last word : The Brotherhood of Jesus Christ 
is the only circle wherein we may surely say that the soul 
may develop unto the life everlasting. In this sense the 
Church is divine. He whom Jesus has forgiven must work 
with him, for "He that gathereth not with Me scattereth ;" 
and he who would do Christ's work must be sanctified by 
Him, for "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me." 

Lesson Outline: 

I. A Study of Church Membership. 
II. The Youth a Soul-Winner. 

III. The Use of the Revival. 

IV. The Youth a Sunday-school Teacher. 
V. The Only Brotherhood. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. Proper revival methods for use with adolescents. 

2. Methods of personal work. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. What is "the root of the matter" spiritually? 

2. What is meant by ''point of view?" 

3. What is there in teaching besides the spoken words? 



270 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

4. What ought to be the goal of the teacher's efforts? 

5. Who can work best with young people? 

6. The young teacher's advantages. 

7. The young teacher's limitations. 

8. What difficulties do older people find in working 

with the young? 

9. What are proper times for soul-winning? 

10. Is it wise to give young people important work in 

the Church? 

11. What do you think of Mrs. Palmer's method? 



CHAPTER XX 

THE CALL OF THE WORLD 



CHAPTER XX 
THE CALL OF THE WORLD 

I. Guiding Principles 

These cardinal principles we have tried to keep before 
the senior worker in these studies : the significance and op- 
portunity of growth, the peculiarities of adolescence, the 
responsiveness of the adolescent to the right appeals, the 
importance of the teacher's understanding of his pupils, the 
value of present-day opportunities to the senior, the supreme 
need of intelligent spiritual culture, and the teacher's ex- 
traordinary possibilities of influence. 

II. The Last Lesson 

John Trebonius was the old German professor who al- 
ways appeared before his students with uncovered head, and 
when asked for an explanation of this reverence, said, "Who 
The can tell what yet may rise up among these 

Unlimited youths?" And among the youths of that class 
Possibiiites was Martin Luther, that "solitary monk that 
of Youth shook the worid » Said Paul t0 Timothy, "Let 

no man despise thy youth," expressing thereby his sense of 
appreciation of youth's possibilities. The teacher is that 
privileged person who is permitted to enter the sanctuary of 
youth. As he proves himself intelligent and wise and sym- 
pathetic he is held in the hearts of his pupils, and his in- 
fluence over them is very great. 

As maturity draws near the plastic period comes to its 
natural close. His is the last hand that may touch their life 
to mold it with facility. At this time also the youth stands 
upon the threshold of his permanent abode. He has not 
finally chosen it yet, and this teacher may be the one who 
18 273 3 



274 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

shall crown all his labors of love in taking him up into a 
high mountain — not of temptation, but of outlook — and show- 
ing him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of 
them. Perhaps he is the only guide who can take the 
youth safely to Inspiration Point and disclose to him the 
expansive panorama of mountain and valley, of forest and 
field and river. It will not do for the teacher to neglect 
this last and highest opportunity nor to omit it in his own 
preparations for his holy service. If he would do his full 
duty by his pupil-friend he must have his own ear out for 
the call of the world, that he may aid the pupil to hear 
and to interpret his call aright. For he has his work in this 
great world, and it will issue its call for him. This may be 
loud and insistent, and it may be but a still small voice. 

In any case the teacher-friend can render valuable aid 
in this crisis of life. It has been well said that a friend 
is one who shows us what we can do. Many a youth has 
come to a delightful self-revealing through the insight of a 
devoted Sunday-school teacher. There would be more gospel 
preachers to-day if Sunday-school teachers had been more 
intelligent and faithful. Many a sermon has been preached 
to the salvation of men that would never have found voice 
but that some teacher interpreted the Spirit's call to the 
preacher. Many a missionary has gone to the far-off pagan 
lands through the vision that has been opened before him 
by his teacher. Many a successful business man has been 
started on his prosperous way by this same kind of helpful 
influence. 

George William Curtis once told this story at a birthday 
dinner in Boston. An Oriental prince and his mentor walked 
abroad one day, the latter carrying in his hand a jar, which 
he presently uncorked. From the open mouth of the vessel 
rose a gas, and this the mentor lighted. Thick fumes curled 
up from the burning gas and gradually took such shape 
that the prince could not help recognizing traces of his own 
features, though ennobled and glorified. "Can it be that 

3 



THE CALL OF THE WORLD 275 

this pictures me?" asked the flattered prince. "Yes," smiled 
the mentor; "not, however, as you are, but as you ought 
to be." The wise and loving teacher carries this jar and 
is able to present to his pupil thereby those ideals of future 
character that he may realize. 

It is not uncommon for inexperienced young people to 
place their affections upon the wrong things. Their esti- 
mates of moral values need to be rectified often. Herbert 
Spencer is said to have indulged once in a while in a game 
of billiards for recreation. A young man who knew him 
asked the philosopher if he would join in a game, and he 
consented. Mr. Spencer started the balls. He left them 
in good position, and the young man, who was an expert, 
finished the game in one break, not allowing his antagonist 
another shot. Then the young man smilingly looked to 
Mr. Spencer for the expected compliment. But he looked 
seriously at the youth, and said, "Sir, moderate proficiency 
at this sport is a sign of good education; such mastership, 
however, as you exhibit is the proof of an ill-spent youth." 
Then he took his hat and disappeared. 

III. Enlarged Plans Required 

We have spent some time in the consideration of the 
new world in which we live. The day was, and that not so 
long ago, when every family, almost, was sufficient unto it- 
self. This is interestingly evident in the Wash- 
the World ington mansion at Mount Vernon. But now the 
division of labor has made us all specialists, 
and this means dependence. Think how many thousands of 
people serve us in what we eat and wear and use every 
day. But it also means the enlargement of our lives. At 
first the individual was made perfect in his family, then in 
his clan or tribe, then in the State, then in the nation, and 
now at last he must live in the whole wide world if he 
lives at all. 

The world is more htan simply expanded; it is ener- 



ty6 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

gized. It is said that the four great manufacturing nations, 
the United States, England, France, and Germany, have 
steam power in excess of the aggregate of all the human 
male muscular power in the whole world, and this can be 
increased indefinitely as it may be needed. Machinery has 
greatly enhanced the power of the common man. He is 
said to be fifty times as powerful as he was a century ago. 
He has seized the lever of nature, grasping which he can 
do as much as could fifty men a hundred years ago — and 
this power is increasing. 

The thought-world is growing faster than any other. 
What wonder that old theological conceptions have been 
disturbed by the prodigious advancement of learning! When 
the pope of Rome drew a line in the Atlantic Ocean and 
declared that there was no land beyond it, that error was 
so much the worse for the pope — -not for geography. Dr. 
Strong well says that "thinking minds want a religious con- 
ception large enough to make room for the enlarged ideas, 
comprehensive enough to embrace every new fact of universal 
knowledge, secure enough to welcome every new ray of light 
from whatever source — a religion adapted not only to the 
individual, but also to the vast life of society; not a re- 
ligion of rules, but one of principles, applicable to all the 
possible complexities of human relationships and capable of 
solving social as well as personal problems," 

IV. A New Salvation 

The new point of view gives us a conception of the 
gospel salvation so much enlarged that it may be called a 
new salvation. Not that it is new to the gospel, 
The Gospel f course ; b u t it arises out of a deeper study of 
Realized ^ e S 0S P e ^ Whatever theological theory might 

have been, the "life-boat theory" has been gen- 
erally adopted in Christian practice. The way of salvation 
has been conceded to be to "leave the poor old stranded 
wreck and pull for the shore," the said wreck being the world 



THE CALL OF THE WORLD 277 

lying in wickedness, dead in trespasses and sins. Bunyan's 
immortal allegory sets forth this theory. His typical Chris- 
tian forsakes his home and his city, which is named the 
city of Destruction, to save his soul by seeking a far-off 
heaven. He does not even take his wife and children with 
him, but leaves them to make their own perilous way by 
themselves. For his neighbors and his town he seems to 
care nothing and to hope nothing. 

But we do not so regard our Christian mission to-day. 
We do not leave the city we live in to destruction, nor do 
we believe that it is hopelessly depraved. The modern Sun- 
day-school teacher, in the crisis of his pupils' lives, urges 
upon them their own community as the place where they 
ought to work. He has no use for a life-boat. He solemnly 
warns them against hating the world, and teaches them to 
love the world as their Master did, or as did the Infinite 
Father who "so loved the world that He gave His only 
begotten Son" to come and save it. The world as repre- 
senting the spirit of evil is quite another thing, and this dis- 
tinction must always be made. 

Lord Shaftesbury illustrated the true Christian thought of 
salvation when he talked to Frances Power Cobbe about 
the wrongs of the working-girls. With tears in his eyes 
and with a trembling voice he said to her: "When I think 
that I am growing old and that I have not long to live, I 
hope it is not wrong, but I can not bear to die and leave 
the world with so much wretchedness in it." On this Dr. 
Strong comments : "The wretchedness from which so many 
would flee was precisely that which bound him to the earth. 
He would fain stay so long as he could relieve any measure 
of the world's woe, and bring heaven a little nearer earth. 
That to my mind is a far more Christian conception of life 
and more heroic than that which is represented in the 'Pil- 
grim's Progress.' Let us not be impatient for heaven. It 
will keep." 

Tennyson's swan-song is beautifully appropriate to the 

3 



278 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

close of a long earthly pilgrimage, but it is not for the 
earnest youth. Let him rather sing, "Sunrise and morning 
star, and one clear call for me." Happy is that teacher 
who is able to make the cry of the world's need a clear 
call to his pupils. 

V. The Vocational Awakening 

Corresponding to the call from without is a cry within. 
It is the sign of a new life which has been called a voca- 
tional awakening; that is, the adolescent feels within him 

the stirrings of new powers and purposes more 
Guidance in ^definite and more ambitious than he has felt 
a Life Work before. He is beginning to choose his part in 

the work of life. Perhaps the choice is made 
early and eagerly and is never changed. His life is the 
projection of his adolescent election. Perhaps, however, his 
mind is less decisive. He inclines in a certain direction, 
but wavers and oscillates for some time before he knows just 
where he will take his stand. But the important thing for 
the teacher of adolescents is to recognize the fact of this 
awakening, along with other peculiarities of youth, and to be 
ready for it. He will be more likely to underrate it than 
to overrate it, for the youth may have little to say about 
what is very much in his thoughts. 

Haslett reminds us that some of the world's greatest 
productions have been thought out during this stage of life, 
which shows its possibilities at least. Eduard Von Hartmann 
published his "Philosophy of the Unconscious" at the age 
of twenty-five. Schopenhauer produced his "Fourfold Root 
of the Principle of Sufficient Reason" at twenty-five. Schel- 
ling came before the world as a philosophic writer when 
he was but eighteen, and at twenty-two had established his 
ability as a thinker. Kant began his literary career at the 
age of twenty-two. Malebranche began his public life at the 
age of twenty-one, when he was elected a member of the 
Congregation de 1'oratoire. Descartes became dissatisfied with 

3 



THE CALL OF THE WORLD 279 

the prevailing philosophy before he was twenty-one, and when 
he reached that age left science awhile for life in the camp. 
Aristotle at the age of sixteen began the study of philosophy 
under Plato at Athens. The great majority of students 
enter college at about the age of eighteen to twenty. 

Bryant produced "Thanatopsis" at the age of eighteen. 
He was called precocious, but Whittier and Longfellow and 
Lowell wrote poetry at an early age, as nearly all the poets 
seem to have done. It is probable that all who have written 
literature at all have begun to write in their adolescent 
years. Preachers have heard the call in their youth, and so 
have missionaries and deaconesses and Christian workers 
generally. 

VI. The Consecration of the Life 

It may not be the duty of the teacher to take an active 
part in the choice of a life-work for his pupil. This is 
mainly the responsibility of the youth himself. No one ought 
Influence the to P us ^ ^ m * nto any thing. But there is one 
Youth to thing which is eminently appropriate for the 

Consecration teacher's office: to impress upon the young man 
of Life to a or ^ v0lln g woman that every life should be 
devoted to usefulness. No life-work should be 
laid out with only self in view. The youth should be dili- 
gently taught the reality and the value of the altruistic prin- 
ciple which Christianity has put forth as peculiarly its own. 
He should be told that the life that will bring the most to 
himself is that which is considerate of others. Not merely 
for Christian workers, but for all, the true life is the con- 
secrated life. Not much can be done to influence the youth 
aright by any who are not admitted to his intimate friend- 
ship, nor can much be done except at this critical time. 
But it can be accomplished by a faithful teacher, as is evi- 
denced by the multitude of lives that teachers have given 
direction to. 

Take the single case of Booker T. Washington. While 

3 



2 8o THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

he was trying to settle the momentous question of his life- 
work he became intensely interested in politics. He says 
that he came very near yielding to these alluring tempta- 
tions, but was kept from so doing by the feeling that he 
would be helping in a more substantial way by assisting in 
the laying of the foundation of his race through a generous 
education of the hand, head, and heart. Where did he get this 
feeling? From his teacher. He declares that the greatest 
benefits that he got out of his student life were two : "First, 
was contact with a great man, Gen'l C. S. Armstrong, who, 
I repeat, was in my opinion the rarest, strongest, and most 
beautiful character that it has ever been my privilege to 
meet. Second, at Hampton, for the first time I learned 
what education was expected to do for an individual. Before 
going there I had a good deal of the then rather prevalent 
idea that to secure an education meant to have a good, 
easy time, free from all necessity for manual labor. At 
Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to 
labor, but learned to love labor, not alone for its financial 
value, but for labor's own sake and for the independence 
and self-reliance which the ability to do something the world 
wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste 
of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first 
knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those 
who do the most to make others useful and happy." 

The wise teacher will take a lively interest in all that 
pertains to the future of his pupils. He will utilize his in- 
teresting personal knowledge of their individual talents for 

their help in determining their life-work, never 
Privilege doing violence to these. He will exclude no 

career from his regard. But there is one par- 
ticular interest that the Christian teacher must always hold 
dear. There is one cause that he will never fail to have 
duly presented to his young people : that of distinctively Chris- 
tian service. This is greatly needed at the present time. 
Never were the harvests of the world so white as now, and 

3 



THE CALL OF THE WORLD 281 

never were laborers so sorely needed in the work of the 
Church as now. 

The vantage point of the Sunday-school teacher can be 
utilized richly here. While he should never seek unduly to 
influence his pupils to enter the ministry or the deaconess 
work or to go into the mission field or to take training 
for the Young Men's Christian Association or other similar 
work, he should at least see to it that the facts concerning 
this kind of service should be fairly laid before them. He 
should never forget that Christian work means self-sacrifice 
as does no other, and that this operates against it in the 
minds of many. It is his special privilege to show the young 
people the great need of workers in the Church and the 
beauty and honor of a consecration to the special service 
of Jesus Christ. He will take pains to keep informed con- 
cerning the progress of the gospel at home and abroad. He 
will make some kind of a special study of the Christian 
pastorate, so that if occasion arises he can speak intelli- 
gently to inquirers concerning it. He should be able to 
offset the current objections of young men to the minis- 
terial calling with statements of its advantages, its possi- 
bilities, and its joys. 

He should devote attention to the cause of Christian 
missions, trying to keep pace with their swift progress all 
abroad. He should know something of the great mission- 
ary organizations and their plans of work. He should keep 
posted on the Students' Volunteer Movement, the Young 
People's Missionary Movement, the women's societies and 
their minor bodies. He should know of the new books that 
are being published in the interest of missionary education 
in the Sunday-school and elsewhere, and should encourage 
membership in mission study classes. 

The object of all this is not so much to make special 
pleas for this service as to give it a fair consideration by 
young people who are seeking for the best possible invest- 
ment of their lives. The highest of all forms of service, the 



282 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

Christian ministry, in the broader sense, should by no means 
be left in neglect. 

VII. A Satisfying Portion 

The Christian ministry (using the term of all kinds of 
Church work) is a satisfying portion. When the promised 
land was divided among the tribes of Israel, Levi got none, 
and it was said, "Levi hath no portion nor in- 
The Truly heritance with his brethren." This seemed harsh. 
Portion ^ ut rea % tne Levites received far more than 

land, for it was also said, "Jehovah is his in- 
heritance." It has been said that the most pathetic sight 
of our day is that of great men doing little things. "Every- 
where one sees high powers consecrated to common ends, capa- 
ble enthusiasms expended upon trivial accomplishments, living 
souls absorbed and engrossed in the vocations and avocations 
that are commensurate with only the animal part of being." 

The Church of Jesus Christ offers great tasks for great 
souls. It can make souls great by uniting them consciously 
with Almighty God in the re-creation of the world. To all 
those who will rise above the things that perish and dedicate 
themselves to spiritual ministries God offers Himself as 
their inheritance. No one who resigns land to give himself 
to a holy ministry in the name of Christ goes unrecognized 
by the Master. There are great tasks, noble missions, lofty 
enthusiasms, large problems, and sacrifices as pure as ever 
kindled a martyr's devotion awaiting the self-dedication of 
heroic young men and women to-day. 

It is the teacher's precious privilege to bid them listen 
to the Voice that utters the high call of the world in the 
last words of the incarnate mission : "All authority hath 
been given unto Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye, therefore, 
and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the 
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 



THE CALL OF THE WORLD 283 

manded you : and lo ! I am with you alway, even unto the 
end of the world." 

Lesson Outline: 

I. Guiding Principles. 
II. The Last Lesson. 

III. Enlarged Plans Required. 

IV. A New Salvation. 

V. The Vocational Awakening. 
VI. The Consecration of the Life. 
VII. A Satisfying Portion. 

Topics for Special Study: 

1. The teaching of Jesus concerning salvation. 

2. The age of great life choices. 

Topics for Class Discussion: 

1. What are the leading principles underlying these 

studies? 

2. How can the teacher help his pupils choose their 

life-work ? 

3. In what respects do the young need help in this? 

4. The danger of too narrow plans. 

5. Should the Christian love the world or hate it? 

6. When are life choices usually made? 

7. How far should others be regarded in making this 

choice ? 

8. What ought the teacher to do in behalf of the 

Christian ministry? For missions? 

9. How are young people to know the facts of Chris- 

tian service? 
10. What is the noblest work in the world? 



284 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

"The Graded Sunday-school in Principle and Practice," 
Meyer. 

"The Psychological Principles of Education," Home. 

"Adolescence," G. Stanley Hall. 

"Elements of Religious Pedagogy," Fred Lewis Pattee. 

"Principles and Ideals for the Sunday-school," Burton and 
Mathews. 

"Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals," William James. 

"Principles of Religious Education," Nicholas M. Butler 
and others. 

"The Development of the Child," Nathan Oppenheim. 

"The Pedagogical Bible School," Samuel B. Haslett. 

"Letters to Sunday-school Teachers," Henry Churchill 
King. 

"The Training of the Human Plant," Luther Burbank. 

"The Spiritual Life," George A. Coe. 

"Education in Religion and Morals," George A. Coe. 

"The Religion of a Mature Mind," George A. Coe. 

"Studies in Christianity," Borden P. Bowne. 

"Educational Evangelism," Charles E. McKinley. 

"Christian Nurture," Horace Bushnell. 

"The Religion of Childhood," F. G. Hibbard. 

"Christianity and Childhood," Richard J. Cooke. 

"The Psychology of Religion," Edwin D. Starbuck. 

"The Boy Problem," William B. Forbush. 

"Studies in Childhood," James Sully. 

"The Point of Contact in Teaching," Patterson DuBois. 

"The Natural Way in Moral Training," Patterson DuBois. 

"The Unfolding Life," Antoinette A. Lamoreaux. 

"The Meaning of Education," Nicholas Murray Butler. 

"My Pedagogic Creed," John Dewey. 

"Primer on Teaching," John Adams. 

"Education," Herbert Spencer. 

"The Seven Laws of Teaching," John M. Gregory. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 285 

"How to Plan a Lesson," Marianna C. Brown. 

"Education and the Larger Life," C. Hanford Henderson. 

"Teachers and Teaching," Henry Clay Trumbull. 

"A New Life in Education," Fletcher Durell. 

"The Times and Young Men," Josiah Strong. 

"Expansion," Josiah Strong. 

"The Next Great Awakening," Josiah Strong. 

"On the Threshold," Theodore T. Munger. 

"Entering on Life," Cunningham Geikie. 

"The School and Society," John Dewey. 

"The Child's Religious Life," W. G. Koons. 

"Studies in the Art of Illustration," Amos R. Wells. 

"Missions in the Sunday-school," Martha B. Hixson. 

"Servants of the King," Robert E. Speer. 

"Missionary Methods* George H. Trull. 



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